Old age; and, Friendship; essays. Translated by William Melmoth, with an introd. by Henry Morley

^resenicli to

of tl{e

Mrs. J. S. Hart

UNULRSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS

CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY

OLD AGE

AND

FRIENDSHIP

Some of the Volumes of the New Series of

CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.

».— slLAb MARNER— GEORGE ELIOT. Intru. STUakt J. Reid

s.— A SENTIMENTAL lOURNEY— L. Sthknb. Intro. L. K AUSTIN

3.— KICUAKU 11— SHAKHSPEARB.

<.— bKUWNlNGS POEMS— (Selection). Intro. A. U. INNES.

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^y.—CARLYLE'.^ SARTOR RESARTUS. Intro. G. K, CHESTERTON.

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S3. — HENRY v.— SHAKESPEARE.

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56.- ESSAYS OF ELIA -CHARLES LAMB. Intro. WiLLIA.M ARCHER.

S7.—ARE0PAGITU.A— MILTON.

58.-THE BATTLE OF LIFE— CHARLES DiCKB.vs.

so.— VOYAGES AND TRAVELS-MARCO POLO.

to.— GRACE ABOUNDING-JOHN BUNYAN.

61.— THE WINTER'S T.\LE— SHAKESPEARE.

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64.-l>RYDEN'S POEMS.

65.— BACON'S WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS

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67.— BURKE'S ESSAYS ON THE SUBLLME AND BEAUTIFUL.

68.— THE COMEDY OF ERRORS— SHAKESPEARE.

69.— WORDSWORTH'S P0F:MS- (Selection).

70.— MILTON'S EARLIER POEMS.

71.— LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST— SHAKESPEARE.

«.— OLD AGE AND FRIENDSHIP— CiCERO.

73.— SORROWS OF WERTER— (SOETHE.

CASSELL Sc Company. Limited. London; Paris, New York Br Uelooum,

/'//,./,.; .1/1 ::>'■/'. /;.i;-7..

CICERO.

From a lixist in the
Vatican Museum, Rome.

OLD AGE

AMD

FRIENDSHIP

ESSAYS

BY

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

TRANSLATED BY

WILLIAM MELMOTH

With an Introduction by
HENRY MORLEY

CASSELL AND COMPANY. LIMITED
LONDON. PARIS, NEW YORK
AND MELBOURNE. MCMY

All Rights Reserved

INTEODUCTION.

It was iu the year's interval of troubled life between
the murder of Caesar and his own violent death, under
the proscription of the Triumvirate, that Cicero, who
had not quite completed his sixty- fourth year at the
time when he was murdered, wrote these Essays on
Old Age and Friendship. He found rest from his
cares in philosophic thouglit. He wrote at the same
time on the Nature of the Gods, on Divination, Glory,
Fate, and began his famous ethical book on the duties
of life, " De Officiis."

The essays on Old Age and Friendship were ad-
dressed by Cicero to his intimate friend Atticus, to
whom also he wrote many private letters, which were
collected, and remain among his works, throwing
much light on the vexed question of his persona]
character. Of his genius there is no question.

Marcus TuUius Cicero was born in the year before
Christ 106, of a well-to-do plebeian family, near
Arpinum, in what is now the kingdom of iSTaples. His
father lived on a little estate, among rocks and woods
and streams, where the Fibreno flows into the Gario"-
liauo, and there Cicero was born. Cicer means a

6 INTRODUCTION.

vetch, and the family name may liave been first given
to an ancestor who grew vetclies. Plutarch says that
when Cicero entered public life he was advised to
change his humble name, but he answered that he would
make it more glorious than tlic nauies of the Scauri and
tlio Catuli.

Cicero had a brother, Quintus, wlio was sent with
him to be educated in Rome, where tliey studied Greek,
and had Greeks for their chief teachers. His artistic
seuse of literature Ci^used Cicero, witliout be^ng a poet,
to write verse in his youth. He studied rlietoric, and
at the age of six-and-twenty made liis first appearance
as an advocate. Next year the ability of his defence
of Sextus Roscius, falsely accused of parricide, brought
him many clients. There was no direct payment for
pleadings. The profits of a leading Roman orator were
great, but indirect. Strenuous work as an advocate
broke down Cicero's healtli, and lie went for rest to
Athens : he travelled next in Asia Minor, still studvinsr
under famous rhetoricians, and had been away two
years when he returned to Rome, thirty years old, with
his health fully restored. Cicero was soon afterwards
advocate for another Roscius — Roscius the actor. He
took also, or had taken, a wife, Terentia, with whom ,
he lived iiappily for many years. She was the mother
of two children very dear to him, but, for reasons now
unknown, he divorced her after they had lived together
thirty years, his age then being sixty-one, hers fifty.

INTRODUCTION. 7

He replaced her with a young Pnblilia, who mf,de him
unhappy, and whom he divorced promptly, paying back
her dowry.

At the age of thirty-two Cicero was sent as qnasstor
to the province of Sicily. After his year of office he
returned to Rome and continued his life as a pleader
till the age of ^thirty-eight, when he was admitted to
tha Senate and elected Curule ^dile. In the next
year, 68 B.C., we have the beginning of those published
letters to Atticus, in which we find the personal charm
of a kindly nature iu a man of refined scholarship,
whose house, he said, wanted a soul until its books were
in it. From these familiar letters also there may be
drawn reasonings about faults in the character of
Cicero, its weak and its strong points, in any way wo
will.

Cicero had by this time possession of a country-seat
on a spot favoured by many wealthy Romans, a hill-
top by the city of Tusculum. Here was his Tusculan
villa, from which he could see Rome across the 0am-
pagua. It was built to look like a small copy of the
Academy at Athens. Cicero had other villas in other
places ; one of them was near Pompeii, another at
Formiae, near Gaeta. Part of the wealth that sup-
ported these various homes had come in presents from
foreign suitors, who desired the goodwill of the leading
orator in Rome. In one of his Philippics, Cicero said
that he had received upwards of twenty million sesterces

8 INTRODUCTION.

— equivalent to about £178,000 — in legacies from
friends.

At the age of forty-one Cicero was made Praetor of
the city, and the advocate became a criminal judge, with-
out ceasing to plead causes. Ho might after this have
secured greater wealth bj' obtaining government of
a province ; but his mind was fixed on the Consul-
ship, and to obtain that he remained in Rome. In
flie year B c. 65, at the age of forty-two, he was
elected Consul.

In hi.- consulship he had to deal with the conspiracy
of Catiline, and from this time Cicero's life became
part of the history of Rome, until he was mui-dered in
his Foimiau villa in the yeai* 43 B.C.

Titus Pomponius Atticus, to whom these Essays are
addressed, unlike his friend Cicero, was wholly with-
out political ambition. He sought no office in the
State, and used his ample means in aid of friends on
either side in the civil wai's with which the State was
torn. He protected Antony's wife and family when
Antony was thought to have been hopelessly ruined
by the battle of Modena. He sent aids to Brutus
when Brutus coidd not stay in Rome ; but he refused
to attend any meeting or join in any subscription that
would commit him as a partisan to either side. His
friendship with men eager in rivalry helped some-
times to make rivals friends. Thus he joined in good
fellowship Cicero and Hortensius, who was his rival

INTRODUCTION. 9

in oratory. He sought no power for himself, and
followed no gi-eat man for patronage. He was punc-
tual in the performance of all duties, intolerant only
of falsehood ; actively kind to many, he bore malice to
none. To the charm of such a character, with ease
and wealth, he added a fine sense of literature, and
himself wrote well. He lived to the age of seventy,
and, by his own wish, his body was carried without
pomp to his family tomb upon the Appian road.

William Melmoth, the translator of these essays,
was the son of a William Melmoth, bencher of Lin-
coln's Inn, who published in 1711 a treatise — " The
Great Importance of a Religious Life Considei'ed "
— which had a sale of a hundred thousand copies.
William Melmoth, the son, settled at Bath, and first
published these translations of Cicero's Gato and
Loelius, each in a distinct volume with many appended
notes, in 1773. He was then in high repute as a
translator. He had begun in 1746 with " The Letters
of Pliny the Consid, with Occasional Remarks" ; had
followed that in 1753 with " Cicero's Letters to several
Friends," these being also " with remarks " ; and tlieu
came, twenty years later, "with remarks," these ver-
sions of the De Senectute and De Ainicitia. William
Melmoth the younger, as translator of these pieces,
was, like Cicero when he wrote them, sixty-three
years old. Ho lived to be eighty-nine, and died in
the last year of the eighteentli century, H. M.

A*— 72

C ATO;

OR,

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE.

To Titus Pomponius Atticus.

" Ah, could my numbers charm thy anxious breast
And lull the sorrows of thy soul to rest ;
Would' st thou not deem the poet's lenient lay
More worth than sums of countless gold could pay ? "

For well, may I address you, ray friend, in those
lines of the honest bard,

" Far less for wealth than probity renowned,"

with which he opens his poem inscribed to
Flamininus. I am sensible at the same time that
when the poet adds,

" Each rising sun beholds thy ceaseless grief,
And night returning brings thee no relief,"

he holds a language by no means applicable to
you. I perfectly well know the moderation and
equanimity you possess ; and that you Ijave derived
from Athens, not only an honourable addition to
your name, but that calm and philosophic spirit

12 CATO ; OR.

whicli SO peculiarly distinguishes your character.
Nevertheless, I have reason to believe that the
present unpleasing posture of public affairs some-
times interrupts your tranquillity of mind ; as it
frequently, I confess, discomposes my own. But
it is not my present purpose to offer you any con-
solation upon that subject : the case requires a
very powerful application ; and I will reserve
what I have to say upon it to some future oppor-
tunity. My design at this time is only to com-
municate to you a few reflections concerning Old
Age : the inlirmities whereof we are now beginnins
to feel, or at least are advancing fast towards them:
and I am desirous of rendering the burthen as
easy as possible both to you and to myself. I am
well convinced indeed that as you have hitherto
borne its weight, so you will continue to support
its increasing pressure, with the same good sense
and composure of mind which you have so happily
discovered upon every other important occasion.
However, having resolved to publish some re-
flections upon the subject, I determined to address
them to you, avIio have a peculiar claim to this
pledge of my affection : and it is a present to
which we may both of us have recourse Avith equal
advantage. For myself, at least, the considerations

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 13

I now lay before you have had so happy an effect
on my own mind, as not only to reconcile me to
all the inconveniencies of old age, but to render it
even an agreeable state to me.

Can we sufficiently then express our sense of
the obligations we owe to philosophy, who thus
instructs her disciples how to pass through every
successive period of human life with equal satis-
faction and complacency 1 The advantages to be
derived from her precepts, in other important
situations, is a topic upon which I have frequently
had occasion to expatiate, and shall often perhaps
resume : but in the papers I now send you, my
purpose is to consider those advantages with res-
pect only to our declining years. To have put
these reflections into the mouth of an imaginary
character, like the Tithonus of Aristo, would have
made but little impression upon the reader : in
order therefore to give them the greater force.
I have represented them as delivered by the
venerable Cato. To this end I have introduced
Scipio and Ltelius, as expressing to him their
admiration of the wondei-ful ease with which he
supported his old age : and this gives him occasion
to enter into a full explanation of his ideas upon
the subject. If you should think that he discovers,

14 CATO ; OB,

in this conversation, a richer vein of literature
than appears in his own compositions, you must
impute it to the acquaintance he afterwards made
with the Greek authors, whose language and philo-
sophy, it is well known, he passionately studied
in the latter end of his long life. I have only to
add, that in delivering the sentiments of Cato,
I desire to be understood as fully declaring my
own.

SciPio. — I have frequently, Cato, joined with
our friend Ljelius, in admiring that consummate
wisdom and virtue, which upon all occasions so
eminently distinguishes your chai^acter; but par-
ticularly, in that singular ease and cheerfulness
with which you seem to bear up under those years
which are pressing upon you. I could never
observe that they are attended with the least
inconvenience to you : whereas the generality of
men, at your time of life, usually complain of old
age as the heaviest and most insupportable of
burthens.

Cato. — There is nothing, my friends, in the cir-
cumstance you have remarked, that can justly, I
think, deserve your admii-ation. Those indeed who
have no internal resource of happiness, will find

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 15

themselves uneasy in every stage of human life :
but to him who is accustomed to derive all his
felicity from within himself, no state will appear
as a real evil into which he is conducted by the
common and regular course of nature. Now this
is peculiarly the case with respect to old age : yet
such is the inconsistency of human folly, that the
very period which at a distance is every man's
warmest wish to attain, no sooner arrives than it
is equally the object of his lamentations. It is
usual with men at this season of life to complain
that old age has stolen upon them by surprise, and
much sooner than they expected. But if they were
deceived by their own false calculations, must not
the blame rest wholly on themselves 1 For, in the
first place, old age surely does not gain by swifter
and more imperceptible steps on manhood, than
manhood advances on youth ; and in the next,
in what respect would age have sitten less heavily
upon them, had its progress been much slower,
and, instead of making his visit at fourscore years,
it had not reached them till four hundred 1 For
the years that are elapsed, how numerous soever
they may have been, can by no means console a
weak and frivolous mind under the usual conse-
quences of long life. If I have any claim therefoi-e

16 CATO; OR,

to that wisdom which you tell me, my friends,
yon have often admin-d in my character (and
wliich I can only wish indeed were worthy of the
opinion you entertain of it, and the appellation
the world has conferred upon me), it consists
wholly in this, that I follow nature as the surest
guide, and I'csign myself with an implicit obedi-
ence to all her saci-ed ordinances. Now it cannot
be supposed that nature, after having wisely dis-
tributed to all the preceding periods of life their
peculiar and proper enjoyments, should have
neglected, like an indolent poet, the last act of the
liuman drama, and left it destitute of suitable
advantages. Nevertheless, it was impossible but
that in the life of man, as in the fruits of the
earth, there should be a certain point of maturity,
beyond which the marks of decay must necessarily
appear : and to this unavoidable condition of his
present being, every Avise and good man will sub-
mit with a contented and cheerful acquiescence.
For to entertain desires repugnant to the universal
law of our existence ; what is it, my friends, but
to wage war, like the impious giants, with the
gods themselves ?

LiELius. — You will confer, then, a very accept'
abte service on botli of us, Cato (for I will venture

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE, 17

to answer for my friend Scipio as well as for
rayself), if you will mark out to us by what means
we may most effectually be enabled to support the
load of incumbent years. For although we are at
present far distant from old age, we have reason,
however, to expect — at least to hope — that it is a
period we shall live to attain.

Cato. — Most willingly, Lselius, I yield to your
request, especially as you assure me that my com-
pliance will be equally agi-eeable to both of you.

SciPio. — Yes, my venerable friend ; like tra-
vellers who mean to take the same long journey
you have gone before us, we should be glad (if it
be not imposing too much trouble upon you) that
you would give us some account of the advanced
stage at which you are now arrived.

Cato.- — I am ready, Scipio, to the best of my
power, to give you the information you desire.
And, indeed, I am the more qualified for the task
you assign me, as I have always (agreeably to the
old proverb) associated much with men of my own
years. This has given me frequent opportunities
of being acquainted with their grievances ; and I
particularly remember to have often heard Caius
Salinator and Spurius Albiuus (men of consular
rank and nearly of the same age as myself) bewail

18 CATO; OR,

their condition. The piincipal subject of their
complaint was, in the first place, that they were no
longer capable of enjoying the sensual gratifications
without which, in their estimation, life was of no
value ; and in the next, that they found themselves
neglected by those who had formerly paid their
court to them with the greatest attention. But
they imputed their grievances, I think, to a wrong
cause. For had they arisen merely from the cir-
cumstance of their age, they would have been
common to myself, and to every other man of the
same advanced years. But the fact is much other-
wise ; and I have known many, at that period of
life, who passed their time without the least re-
pining— who neither regretted that they were
released from the dominion of their passions, nor
had reason to think themselves treated with dis-
respect by any of their connections. In fact, the
true grievance, in all complaints of this kind, lies
in the man and not in the age. They whose desires
are properly regulated, and who have nothing
morose or petulant in their temper and manners,
will find old age, to say the least of it, is a state
veiy easily to be endured, whereas unsubdued
passions and a froward disposition will equally
embitter every season of human life.

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 19

L.ELius. — Your observations, Cato, are un-
doubtedly just. Yet some, perhaps, may be apt
to say, that your ample possessions, together with
the power and influence of your rank and cha-
racter, have very much contributed to soften the
inconveniences of old age, and render it more than
usually easy to you, but that these are advantages
which cannot possibly fall to the lot of many.

Cato. — I must acknowledge that the circum-
stances you mention have some beneficial influence,
but I can by no means admit that the whole de-
pends upon them. When a certain native of the
paltry island of Seriphos told Themistocles, in an
altercation which arose between them, that he was
indebted for the lustre of his fame not to the in-
trinsic splendour of his actions, but to the country
in which he had the good fortune to be born. "It
may be so," replied the Athenian general, ** for if I
had received my birth at Seriphos, I could have
had no opportunity of producing my talents ; but
give me leave to tell you, that yours would never
have made a figure though you had been born in
Athens." The same sentiment is justly applicable
to the case in question ; for although it must be
confessed that old age, under the pressure of
extreme indigence, cannot possibly prove an easy

20 CATO; OE,

state, not even to a wise and virtuous mind, yet
without those essential qualities it must neces-
sarily prove the reverse, although it should be
accompanied with every external advantage. Be-
lieve me, my young friends, the best and surest
guard against the inconveniences of old age, is to
cultivate in each preceding period the principles of
moral science, and uniformly to exercise those
virtues it prescribes. The good seeds wliich you
shall thus have sown in the former seasons of
life will, in the winter of your days, be wonderfully
productive of the noblest and ntost valuable fruit —
valuable not only as a possession which will remain
with you even to your latest moments (though,
indeed, that circumstance alone is a very consider-
able recommendation), but also as a conscious
retrospect on a long life marked with an unin-
terrupted series of laudable and beneficent actions
affords a perpetual source of the sweetest and most
exquisite satisfaction.

When I was very young I conceived as strong
an affection for Quintus Maximus (the celebrated
General who recovered Tarentum) as if we had been
of equal years. There was a dignity in the deport-
ment of this excellent old man, which was tempered
witli singular politeness and affability of manners,

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 21

and time had wrought no sort of alteration in his
amiable qualities. He was not, it is true, at a
time of life which could properly be called infirm
age when I first began to cultivate his friendship ;
but he was certainly, however, advanced in years,
for I was not born till the year before his first
consulate. In his fourth, I served a very young
man in the army he commanded at Capua ; and
five years afterwards I was his Quaestor at Tarentum.
From that post I succeeded to the Edileship ; and
four years after, in the consulate of Tuditanus and
Cethegus, I was chosen Praetor. It was at this
period that, by the advice and eloquence of my
venerable friend, who was now become extremely
old, the Cincian law concerning donatives was
enacted. This great man led our troops to battle
in his old age with as much spirit as if he had been
in the prime and vigour of life ; and when Hannibal,
with all the gaiety of a youthful conqueror, was
exulting in the success of his arms, he gave a check
to his victories by a cool and patient perseverance
in avoiding a general engagement. It is to this
part of his judicious conduct that those famous lines
of my friend Ennius allude : —

" 'Twas his to save the State by wise delay,
Regardless what the censuring world might say.

oo

CATO; OR,

Time proves the merit of the glorious deed,
His fame still rising as the years succeed."

How wondcrfii] was the judgment he displayed,
and the vigilance he exerted, in retaking the cit)'
of Tai'entum ! I remember when Salinator (who,
aftci having been driven by the besiegers from the
cit}^ retired to the citadel) was boasting to Maxi-
miis, in my presence, that it was by his means he
regained possession of the town. " Very true,"
replied Maxiraus, with a smile ; " for if yo7i had
not lost it, I certainly could never have recovered
it." Nor were his spirit and abilities more con-
spicuous as a soldier than a statesman. In his
second consulship, when C. Flaminius, in direct
opposition to the authority of the Senate, was
dividing among the soldiers the conquered lands in
the provinces of Gaul and Picentia, he had the
courage singly, and unsupported by his colleague
Carvilius, to withstand^ as far as it was pos.sible,
the ])opular measures of that factious tribune.
And even when he was Augur, he had the honest
boldness, upon a particular occasion, openly to
declare that " eveiy omen ought to be considered
as favourable or inauspicious, as the interest of the
State determined."

But there is no trait among the many shining

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 23

qualities which adorned this great man's character
that I observed with warmer admiration than the
fortitude with which he supported the death of his
illustrious son. The funeral oration he pronounced
upon that affecting occasion is in everybody's hands;
and which of the philosophers, I will venture to
ask, does not sink in our esteem after the perusing
of this admirable performance? The truth is, it
was not solely in the conspicuous paths of the
world, and when he was acting in the public view,
that this excellent man was truly great; he ap-
peared still gi'eater in the private and domestic
scenes of life. How pleasing and instructive was
his conversation ! how profound his knowledge of
antiquity ! how deep his skill in the laws and in-
stitutions concerning augury ! To which I may
add, that he was better acquainted with the
Grecian literature than is usual for a Roman.
His memory, too, was so remarkably faithful, that
there was not a single event of any note that had
happened in the wars, either with our neighbours
in Italy or with the more distant nations, with
which he was uot perfectly well acquainted. In
short, from my first connection with him, I as
eagerly embraced every opportunity of enjoying
his society as if I had then presaged, what the

21 CATO; OR,

event has verified, that after his death I should
never again meet with so wise and informing a
companion.

I have entered thus minutely into the character
and conduct of Maximus, in order to convince you
that it would be an affront to virtue to suppose
that old age, to a man endowed with such principles
and dispositions, could possibly have been a state
of infelicity. It must be acknowledged, at the
same time, that it is not in every one's power to be
a Maximus or a Scipio ; to enliven the gloom of
declining years by the animating recollection of
the towns he has taken, the battles he has won,
and the triumphs that have honoured his successful
arms. But it is not the great and splendid actions
of the hero or the statesman alone that lead to an
easy and agreeable old age ; that season of life may
prove equally placid and serene to him who hath
passed all his days in the silent and retired paths
of elegant and learned leisure. Of this kind, we
are told, was the old age of Plato, who continued
to employ himself with gi-eat satisfaction in his
philosophical studies, till death put an end to them
in his eighty-fi.rst year. Such, too, was that of
Isocrates, who is said to have composed his famous
discourse, intituled " Panatheuaicus," in the ninety-

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 25

foiu*th year of his age, and liis death did not happen
till five years afterwards. His preceptor, Leon-
tinus Gorgias, lived to complete his one hundred
and seventh year, continuing his studies with
undiminished spirit and application to his last
moments. This celebi'ated veteran beins; asked.
Why he did not put an end to such a tedious
length of life 1 " Because," said he, " I find no
reason to complain of old age" — an answer truly
noble, and altogether worthy of a philosopher !
They whose conduct has not been governed by the
principles of wisdom and virtue are apt to impute
to old age those infirmities for which their former
irregularities are alone accountable. Far diilerent
were the sentiments of Ennius, whom I just now
had occasion to quote ; he compares his declining
years to those of a generous steed :

" Who victor oft in famed Olympia's fields.
To sweet repose his age-woi-n members yields."

You are not too young, my friend, to remember
the person of this veteran poet, for his death hap-
pened so late as the consulate of Csepio and
Philippus, which is not more than nineteen years
ago. And let me observe, by the way, notwith-
standing I was at that time full sixty-five years of

26 CATO: OR,

age, I spoke in defence of the Voconian law with
great exertion of voice and vehemence of action.
But I was going to remark that this venerable
hard, who lived to seventy, bore up under age and
indigence with such wonderful cheerfulness and
good humour, that one woidd almost havfe imagined
he derived even a satisfaction from those circum-
stances which the generality of mankind look upon,
of all others, as the most dis[)iriting and oppressive.

When I consider the several causes which are
usually supposed to constitute the infelicity of old
age, they may be reduced, I think, under four
general articles. It is alleged that " it incapaci-
tates a man for acting in the affairs of the world,"
that " it produces great infii'mities of body," that
" it disqualifies him for the enjoyment of the
sensual gi-atifications," and that " it brings him
within the immediate verge of death." Let us
therefore, if you please, examine the force and
validity of each of these particular charges.

" Old age," it seems, " disqualifies us from taking
an active part in the great scenes of business." But
in what scenes ? let me ask. If in those which
require the strength and vivacity of youth, I readily
admit the charge. But are there no other ; none
which are peculiarly appropriated to the evening

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 27

of life, and which, being executed by the powers
of the mind, are perfectly consistent with a less
vigorous state of body 1 Did Quintus Maximus,
then, pass the latter fend of his long life in total
inactivity ? Tell me, Scipio, was your father, and
my son's father-in-law, the excellent Lucius Paulus,
were the Fabricii, the Cui-ii, and the Coruncanii,
utterly bereaved of all useful energy when they
supported the interests of the Republic by the
wisdom of their counsels and the influence of their
respectable authority 1 Appius Claudius was not
only old, but blind, when he remonstrated in the
Senate with so much force and spirit against con-
cluding a peace with Pyrrhus, to which the majority
of the members appeared strongly inclined. And
upon this occasion it was that he broke forth into
those animated expostulations which Ennius has
introduced into his poem : —

' Shall folly now that honoured Council sway,
Where sacred wisdom wont to point the way 1 "

together with the rest of those spirited lines with
which you are no doubt well acquainted. This
celebrated harangue, which is still extant, Appius
delivered seventeen years after his second con-
sulate, between which and his first there was an

28 CATO; OR.

interval of ten years, and prior to both he had
exercised the office of Censor. It is evident, there-
fore, that he must have been a very old man at the
time of the Pyrrhic war. And, indeed, the tra-
dition received from our forefathers has always
represented him as such.

It appears, therefore, that nothing can be more
void of foundation than to assert that old age
necessarily disqualifies a man for the gi-eat affairs
of the world. As well might it be affirmed that
the pilot is totally useless and unengaged in the
business of the ship, because while the rest of the
crew are more actively employed in their respective
departments, he sits quietly at the helm and directs
its motions. If in the great scenes of business an
old man cannot perform a part which requires the
force and energy of vigorous years, he can act,
however, in a nobler and more important character.
It is not by exertions of corporal strength and
activity that the momentous affairs of state are
conducted ; it is by cool deliberation, by prudent
counsel, and by that authoritative influence which
ever attends on public esteem, qualifications which
are so far from being impaired, that they are usually
strengthened and improved by increase of years.
And in this opinion, my noble friends, I am per-

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 29

suaded I shall have your concurrence, unless, per-
adventure, you look upon me as an useless and idle
member of the commonwealth, because after having
regularly passed through the several gradations of
military service, from the private soldier to the
commander-in-chief, and been concerned in each of
those capacities in a variety of engagements, both
by sea and land, I now no longer lead forth our
armies to battle. But if I forbear to enter per-
sonally into the fatigues of war, I represent to the
Senate its most proper object, and point out in
what manner the operations may best be carried
on. In short, I am perpetually urging the ex-
pediency of declaring war against the Carthaginians,
in order to anticipate them in those hostilities which
they have long been meditating against us. As in
truth I shall never cease to be apprehensive of that
commonwealth till it shall no longer have any
existence. And may the glory of extirpating that
insidious State be reserved, Scipio, for your arms,
that you may have the honour of accomplishing
the great work which your illustrious ancestor so
happily began ! Thirty - three years have now
elapsed since the death of that great man, but
his virtues are still fresh on the minds of hi?
fellow -citizens, and will be had in honourable

30 CATO; OR.

remembrance throughout all generations. His death

happened the year before I was elected Cenaor,

and nine years after his second consulate, in which

office he was chosen my colleague. But had the

life of this excellent man been extended even

through a Avhole century, can it be imagined

that he would have considered the closing period

of such honourable days as a state to be regretted ?

For it was not agility in the robust and manly

exercises, or skill and prowess in the management

of arms, it was his judgment, his counsel, and his

authority alone which he would then have had

occasion to display. If abilities of this latter kind

were not the peculiar attributes of old age, our wise

ancestors would not surely have distinguished the

supreme Council of the State by the appellation of

Senate. The Lacedsemonians, for the same reason,

give to the first magistrates in their commonwealth

the title of Elders. And, in fact, they are always

chosen out of that class of men.

If you look into the history of foreign nations
you will find frequent instances of flourishing com-
munities, which, after having been well-nigh ruined
by the impetuous measures of young and unex-
perienced statesmen, have been restored to their
former gloiy by the prudent administration of

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 31

more discreet years. " Tell me," says one of the
personages in that dramatic piece of Ntevius, called
the School, addressing himself to a citizen of a cer-
tain Republic, " tell me whence it happened that
so considerable a State as yom'S has thus suddenly
fallen to decay ? " The person questioned assigns
several reasons, but the principal is "that a swarm
of rash, unpractised young orators had unhappily
broken forth and taken the lead among them."
Temerity, indeed, is the usual characteristic of
youth, as prudence is of old age.

But it is farther urged " that old age impairs the
memory." This effect, I confess, it may probably
have on those memories which were originally in-
tirm, or whose native vigour has not been preserved
by a proper exercise. But is there any reason to
suppose that Themistocles, who had so strong a
memory that he knew the name of every citizen in
the commonwealth, lost his retentive power as his
years increased, and addressed Aristides, for in-
stance, by the appellation of Lysimachus ? For
my own part, I still perfectly well recollect the
names, not only of all our principal citizens now
living, but of their ancestors also. And I am so
little apprehensive of injuring this faculty (as is
vulgarly believed) by the perusing of sepulchral

32 CATO; OR.

ixiscriptions, that, on the contrary, I find them of
singular service in recallinr;; to my mind those
persons whom death hath long since removed from
the world. Tn fact, I never yet heard of any
veteran whose memory was so weakened by time
as to forget where he had concealed his treasure.
The aged, indeed, seem to be at no loss in remem-
bering whatever is the principal object of their
attention, and few there are at that period of life
who cannot readily call to mind what recognisances
they have entered into, or with whom they have
had any pecuniary transactions. Innumerable in
stances of a strong memory in advanced years
might be produced from among our celebrated
lawyers, pontiffs, augurs, and philosophers ; for the
faculties of the mind will preserve their powers in
old age, unless they are suffered to lose their energy
and become languid for want of due cultivation.
And the truth of this observation may he confirmed
not only by those examples I have mentioned from
the more active and splendid stations of the world,
but from instances equally frequent to be met with
in the paihs of studious and retired life. Sophocles
continued in extreme old age to write tragedies.
As he seemed to neglect his family afiairs whilst
h«? was wholly intent on his dramatic compositions,

A>f ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 33

his sons instituted a suit against him in a court of
judicature, suggesting that his understanding was
impaired, and praying that he might be removed
from the management of his estate ; agreeably
to a custom which prevails likewise in our own
country, where if a father of a family by imprudent
conduct is ruining his fortunes, the magistrate com-
monly interposes and takes the administration out
of his hands. It is said that when the old bard
appeared in court upon this occasion he desired
that he might be permitted to read a play which
he had lately finished, and which he then held in
his hand ; it was his Oedipus in Colonos. His
request being granted, after he had finished the
recital he appealed to the judges whether they
could discover in his performance any symptoms
of an insane mind ? And the result was that the
court unanimously dismissed the complainants'
petition.

Did length of days weaken the powers of
Homer, Hesiod, or Simonides, of Stesichorus,
Isocrates, or Gorgias 1 Did old age interrupt the
studies of those first and most distinguished of the
Greek philosophers, Pythagoras or Democritus,
Plato or Xenocrates? or, to descend into later
times, did grey hairs prove an obstacle to the
B— 72

34 CATO; OE,

philosoi)liic pursuits of Zeno, Cleanthes, or that
famous stoic whom you may remember to have
seen in Rome, the venerable Diogenes 1 On the
contrary, did not all of these eminent persons
persevere in their respective studies with un-
broken spirit to the last moment of their extended
lives ?

But not to enter farther into the consideration
of old age in respect to the nobler and more exalted
application of the human faculties, I could name
among my friends and neighbours in the country
several men far advanced in life who employ them-
selves with so much industry and activity in the
business of agriculture that they never suffer any
of the more important articles of their husbandry
to be carried on when they are not themselves pre-
sent to supervise and direct the work. I will ac-
knowledge, at the same time, that these spirited
labours of the persons I allude to are' not perhaps
a matter of much wonder with regax'd to those
objects of tillage which are sown and reaped within
the year, as no man is so far advanced in age as
not to flatter himself that he may at least survive
to enjoy the benefit of the next harvest. But those
rural veterans I am speaking of are occupied also
iu branches of husbandry, from which they aie

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 35

sure that they themselves cannot possibly live to
derive the least advantasre : —

" The future shade for times unborn they raise,"

as my friend Caecilius expresses it in his play called
The Youthful Companions. Agreeably to this
generous principle, the oldest husbandman when
he is asked, " to what purpose he lays out his
labours in the business of planting ? " may well
reply, "In obedience to the immortal gods, by
whose bountiful providence as I received these fields
from my ancestors, so it is their will that I should
deliver them down with improvement to posterity."
The poet's sentiment in the verse I just now
repeated is far more just than in those lines he
afterwards adds : —

" Severe the doom that length of days impose !
To stand sad witness of unnumbered woes,
Ah, had old age no other ills in store,
Too well might man its dire approach deplore ; "

for if long life may occasion our being the painful
spectators of many calamities which an earlier
death would have concealed from our view, it may
equally afford us the satisfaction of seeing many
happy events which could not otherwise have come
within our notice. Not to mention that disacree-
able scenes will unavoidably occur to the young no

36 CATO; OR.

less than to the old. But the observation of my
dramatic friend is still more unwarrantable when
he farther declares that : —

" Of all the ills which drooping eld await,
'Tis sure the worst to stand the scorn, or hate,
Of happier years."

Why should he suppose that old age necessarily
lays us open to a mortification of this kind 1 As
men of good sense in the evening of life ai-e
generally fond of associating with the younger
part of the world, and when they discover in them
the marks of an amiable disposition, find a sort of
alleviation of their infirmities in gaining their
affection and esteem ; so, on the other hand, well-
inclined young men think themselves equally happy
to be conducted into the paths of knowledge and
virtue by the guidance and instruction of ex-
perienced age. For my own i)art, at least, I have
reason to believe that my company is not less
acceptable to you, my youthful friends, than yours
most assuredly is to me.

But to resume the particular point under con-
sideration. It appears that old age is so far from
being necessarily a state of languor and inactivity
that it generally continues to exert itself in that
sort of occupation which was the favourite object

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 37

of its pursuit in more vigorous years. I will add
that instances might be produced of men who in
this period of life have successfully applied them-
selves even to the acquisition of some art or science
to which they were before entirely strangers. Thus
Solon, in one of his poems written when he was
advanced in years, glories that "he learnt some-
thing every day he lived." And old as I myself
am, it is but lately that I acquired a knowledge of
the Greek language, to which I applied with the
more zeal and diligence^ as I had long entertained
an earnest desire of becoming acquainted with the
writings and characters of those excellent men to
whose examples I have occasionally appealed in
the course of our present conversation. Thus
Socrates, too, in his old age learnt to play upon
the lyre, an art which the ancients did not deem
unworthy of their application. If I have not fol-
lowed the philosopher's example in this instance
(which, indeed, I very much regret), I have spared,
however, no pains to make myself master of the
Greek language and learning.

The next imputation thrown upon old age is,
that " it impairs our strength," and it must be
acknowledged the charge is not altogether without
foundation. But, for my own part, I no more

38 ^ CATO: OE.

regret the want of that vigour which T possessed
in my youth, than I lamented in my youth that I
was not endowed with the force of a bull or an
elephant. It is sufficient if we exert with spirit,
upon every proper occasion, that degree of strength
which still remains with us. Nothing can be more
truly contemptible than a circumstance which is
related concerning the famous Milo of Crotona.
This man, when he was become old, observing a
set of athletic combatants that were exercising
themselves in the public circus : " Alas ! " said he,
bursting into a flood of tears and stretching forth
his arm, " alas ! these muscles are now totally
relaxed and impotent." Frivolous old man; it
was not so much the debility of thy body as the
weakness of thy mind thou hadst reason to lament,
as it was by the force of mere animal prowess, and
not by those superior excellences which truly en-
noble man, that thou hadst rendered thy name
famous. Never, I am well persuaded, did a lamen-
tation of this unworthy kind escape the mouth of
Coruncanius. or ^lins, or the late Publius Crassus ;
men whose consummate abilities in the science of
jurisprudence were generously laid out for the
common benefit of their fellow-citizens, and whose
supeiior s-trength of understanding continued in

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 39

all its force and viofour to the conclusion of their
numerous years.

It must be confessed, however, that the powers of
an orator (as his function cannot be successfully
executed by the force of genius alone, but requires
great exertion, likewise, both of voice and gesture)
must necessarily become languid and enfeebled by
age. Nevertheless, there is a certain sweetness of
utterance which, I know not how, is not subject to be
impaired by years, and this melody of voice (old as
you see I am) I may venture to say I have not yet
lost. There is, indeed, a species of calm and com-
posed elocution extremely graceful and perfectly
well adapted to advanced years, and I have fre-
quently observed an eloquent old man captivate
the attention of his audience by the charms of this
soft and milder tone of delivery. But if age should
render the orator unequal even to this less laborious
application of his talents, they may still be usefully
exerted. They may be employed in forming young
men of genius (yourself, for instance, Scipio, or our
friend Lselius) to a nervous and manly eloquence.
And can there be a more pleasing satisfaction to
an old man, than to see himself surrounded by a
circle of ingenuous youths, and to conciliate by
these laudable means their well-merited esteem

40 CATO ; OR,

and affpction 1 It will not, I suppose, be denied
tliat old age has at least a sufficient degree of
strength remaining to train the rising generation
and instruct them in every duty to which they
may hereafter be called, and there cannot, certainly,
be a more important or a more honourable occupa-
tion. Accordingly, I have always thought it a
very considerable happiness to your relations, Cneus
and Publius Scipio, together with your two grand-
fathers, Lucius ^milius and Publius Africanus,
that they were usually accompanied by a train of
young nobles, who attended them for the advantage
of their instructions. Indeed there is a satisfaction
in communicating useful knowledge of every kind,
which must render any man happy, how much
soever time may have impaired the powers of his
body, who employs the talents of his^mind to so
noble and beneficial a purpose.

But after all, this imbecility of body is more
frequently occasioned by the irregularities of youth,
than by the natural and unavoidable consequences
of long life. A debauched and intemperate young
man will undoubtedly, if he live, transmit weak-
ness and infirmities to his latter tlays. The virtuous
Cyrus, in the discourse which Xenophon relates he
held when he lay on bis death-bed, and which

J

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGR. 41

happened at a very late period of life, declares he
had never perceived that liis old age had been
attended with any sensible decay. I perfectly well
remember Lucius Metellus when I was a boy.
Four years after his second consulate he was chosen
chief pontiff, and he presided two and twenty years
in the sacred college. This venerable personage
preserved such a florid old age to his last moments
as to have no reason to lament the depredations of
time. If I were to mention myself as an instance
of the same kind, it would be only taking an old
man's allowed privilege. Homer, you know, re-
presents Nestor, although his years had extended
even to the third generation, as frequently boasting
of his extraordinary prowess. And, indeed, he
might well be indulged in the vanity of being the
hero of his own true tale ; for, as the poet sings —

" Words sweet as honey from his lips distilled."

And let me remark by the way, that in order to
pour forth this mellifluous and persuasive eloquence
great strength of body was by no means necessary ;
so much otherwise, that the celebrated general of
the Grecian forces never wishes for ten Ajaxes,
but for ten such officers as Nestor, to be secure of
soon laying the walls of Troy level with the ground
B*— 72

42 CATO; OR

But I was ijoincf to obser\e that I am now in
my eighty-fourth year, and I wish I had i-eason to
boast with Cyrus that I feel no sensible decay of
strength. But although I do not possess it in the
same degree as when I made my tirst campaign in
the Carthaginian war, in the course of which I
was advanced to the rank of questor; or when,
during my consulship, I commanded the army in
Spain ; or when four years afterwards T was
military tribune at the battle of Thermopyhe ; yet
I can with truth, j^ou see, affirm that old age has
not totally relaxed my nerves and subdued my
native vigour. My strength has not yet been
found to fail me, either in the Senate or the
assemblies of the people, when my country or my
friends, my clients or my hosts, have had occasion
to require my ser\Tce. The truth is I have never
governed myself by the cautious maxim of that
ancient proverb so frequently quoted, which says,
" You must be old soon if you would be old long ; "
on the contrary, I would rather abate some years
from that season of my life than prematurely
anticipate its arrival. In consequence of this prin-
ciple I have hitherto been always open to access
whenever any person desired to be introduced to
me for my advice or assistance in his aflairs.

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 43

But you will tell me, perhaps, that ray strength
is much inferior to yours. Undoubtedly it is, and
so is yours to that of Pontius the athletic centurion,
but is he therefore a more valuable man 1 A
moderate degree of force is sufficient for all the
rational purposes of life, and whoever will not
attempt to exert his particular portion farther than
he is well able, will assuredly have no great cause
to regret fhat he is not endued with a more con-
siderable share. Milo is said to have walked the
full length of the course at the Olympic games
beai-ing the whole enormous weight of an ox upon
his shoulders. Now tell me which would you
choose to possess — this man's extraordinary powers
of body or the sublime genius of Pythagoras 1 In
a word, my friends, make a good use of your
youthful vigour so long as it remains, but never
let it cost you a sigh when age shall have with-
drawn it from you ; as reasonably, indeed, might
youth reg.ret the loss of infancy or manhood the
extinction of youth. Nature conducts us, by a
regular and insensible progression, through the
different seasons of human life, to each of which
she has annexed its proper and distinguishing
characteristic. As imbecility is the attribute of
infancy, ardour of youth, and gravity of manhood,

a CATO; OR,

SO declining age has its essential properties, which
gradually disclose themselves as years increase.

I am persuaded, Scipio, I need not tell you what
extraordinary things that ancient host of your
ancestors, Massinissa, is still capable of performing.
You have heard, no doubt, that although he is at
this time ninety years of age, he takes long journeys,
sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback,
without once relieving himself throughout the
whole way by alternately changing from the one
mode of travelling to the other ; that he is so
exceedingly hardy, that no severity of weather,
when he is abroad, can induce him to cover his
head ; and that having preserved by these means a
thin and active habit of body, he still retains suffi-
cient strength and spirits for discharging in person
the several functions of his royal station. I par-
ticularise these circumstances as a proof, tliat by
temperance and exercise a man may secure to his
old age no inconsiderable degree of his former spirit
and activity.

If it must be acknowledged that time will in-
evitably undermine the strength of man, it must
equally be acknowledged that old age is a season
of life ill which gi'eat vigour is by no means
required. Accordingly, by the laws and institutions

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 45

of our country, we who are advanced to a certain
age are excused from those offices which demand
robust powers to discharge. Far from being com-
pelled to undertake what is beyond our force, we
are not called upon to exert our strength even to
its full extent. If it be alleged that there are
numberless old men so totally worn out and
decayed, as to be incapable of every kind of civil
or social duty, it must be confessed there are ; but
may not this debility have arisen from an original
weakness of constitution 1 a misfortune by no
means peculiar to old age, but common to every
period of human life. How great a valetudinarian
was that son of Scipio Africanus, who adopted you
for his heir ; so great indeed, that he scarcely ever
enjoyed a day of uninterrupted health. Had he
been formed with a less delicate constitution he
would have shone forth a second luminary of the
Commonwealth, for with all the spirit and mag-
nanimity of his illustrious father he possessed a
more improved and cultivated understanding.
What wonder then if age is sometimes oppressed
with those infirmities from which youth, we see, is
by no means secure !

As to those effects which are the necessary and
natural evils attendant on long life, it imports us

46 CATO; OS,

to counteract their progress by a constant and
resolute opposition, and to combat the infirmities
of old age as we would resist the approaches of a
disease. To this end we should be regularly atten-
tive to the article of health, use moderate exercise,
and neither eat nor drink more than is necessary
for repairing our strength, without oppressing the
origans of di^cestion. Nor is this all : the in-
tellectual faculties must likewise be assisted by
proper cai'e. as well as those of the body. For the
powers of the body, like the flame in the lamp, will
become languid and extinct by time, if not duly
and regularly recruited. Indeed the mind and
body equally thrive by a suitable exertion of their
powers ; witli this difference, however, that bodily
exercise ends in fatigue, whereas the mind is never
wearied by its activity. When Csecilius therefore
represents certain veterans as "fit suVjjects for the
comic muse," he alludes only to those weak and
credulous old doting mortals, whose infirmities of
mind are not so much the natural effect of their
years as the consequence of suffering their faculties
to lie dormant and unexerted in a slothful and
spiritless inactivity. The fact in short is plainly
this : as irregular indulgences of the amorous
pas.sions, although a vice to which youth is irj

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 47

general more prone than age, is a vice, however,
with which those young men alone are infected
who are unrestrained by principles of virtue ; so
that species of delirium which is called dotage, is
not a common weakness incident to every old man
in general, but to those only who have trifled away
their frivolous days in idleness and folly. In
support of this observation I will instance the
venerable Appius. His family consisted of four
sons, who were arrived at the state of manhood,
and five daughters, together with a numerous train
of clients and dependants ; yet. far advanced as he
was in years, and totally de}»rived of his sight, he
would not commit the management of this very
considerable household to any other hands than his
own. And he was abundantly equal to the impor-
tant charge, having kept the spring and energy of
his mind in constant action, nor suffered himself
tamely to sink down under the weight of iiicum-
bent years. In conseqiience of this spirited con-
duct he maintained ;i more than parental authority
over his family ; his commands were obeyed as so
many imperial mandates. In fine, feared by his
servants, reverenced by his children, and endeared
to all, he exhibited in his house a striking speci-
men of that simplicity and good order, which so

4S CA.TO; OE,

eminently distinguished the domestic economy of our
forefatliers. Age is truly respectable in the man
who thus guards himself from becoming the pro-
perty of others, vindicates his just rights, and
maintains his proper authority to the last moments
of his life.

As I lo\e to see the fire of youth somewhat
tempered with the gravity of age, so I am equally
pleased when I observe the phlegm of age somewhat
enlivened with the vivacity of youth ; and whoever
unites these two qualities in his character, may
bear, indeed, tlie marks of years in his body, but
will never discover the same traces in his mind.
In pursuance of this maxim, I am now employed
in adding a seventh book to my antiquities ; in
collecting all the ancient records I c^,n meet with
that relate to ray subject ; in finishing a revisal of
the speeches I made in the several important causes
in which I have been engaged ; as also in drawing
up some observations concerning the augural, ponti-
fical, and civil law. And in order to exercise my
memory, I practise the advice of the Pythagorean
philosophers, by recalling to my mind every night
all that I have said, or done, or heard, the preceding
day. These are the employments by which I keep
the faculties of my understanding in play, and

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 49

preserve them in due vigour : employments in
which I have little reason surely to lament the want
of mere animal strength. ISTor are my occupations
wholly confined to those of a sedentary nature : on
the contrary, I not only assist my friends in the
courts of judicature, but frequentlj'- too, uncalled
upon, attend the senate, where I propose such
measures for the consideration of that assembly as
I have previously weighed and duly matured in my
own thoughts. And these I support, not indeed
by strength of voice and power of lungs, but by
the better force of reason and argument. But were
I so worn down by age as to be incapable of exert-
ing myself in the manner I have mentioned, yet
one satisfaction nevertheless would still remain
with me ; the satisfaction of meditating on these
subjects as I lay on my couch, and of performing
ill imagination what I could no longer execute in
reality. Thanks, however, to that regular and
temperate course of life I have ever led, I am still
capable of taking an active part in these public
scenes of business. In tine, he who fiJls up every
hour of his life in such kind of labours and pursuits
as those I have mentioned, will insensibly slide into
old age without perceiving its arrival ; and his
powers, instead of being suddenly and prematurely

50 CATO; CR.

extingiiished, will gradually decline by the gentle
and natural effect of accumulated years.

Let us now proceed to examine the third article
of complaint against old age, as " bereaving us," it
seems, "of the sensual gratifications." Hapj)y
effect indeed, if it deliver us from those snares
which allure youth into some of the worst vices to
which that age is addicted. Suffer me upon this
occasion, my excellent young friends, to acquaint
vou with the substance of a discourse which was
held many years since by that illustrious philosopher
Archytas, of Tarentum, as it was related to me
when I was a young man in the army of Quintus
Maximus, at the siege of that city. " Nature," said
this illustrious sage, " has not conferred on mankind
a more dangerous present than those pleasures
which attend the sensual indulgences ; as the
passions they excite are too apt to run away with
reason, in a lawless and unbridled pursuit of their
respective enjoyments. It is in order to gratify
inclinations of this ensnaring kind that men are
tempted to hold clandestine correspondence with
the enemies of the state, to subvert governments,
and turn traitors to their country. In short, there
is no sort of crimes that afiect the public welfare
to which an inordinate love of the sensual pleasures

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 51

may not directly lead. And as to vices of a more
private tendency — rapes, adulteries and every other
flagitious violation of the moral duties — are they
not perpetrated solely from this single motive 1
Reason, on the other hand," continued Archytas,
" is the noblest gift which God, or nature, has
bestowed on the sons of men. Now nothing is so
gi'eat an enemy to that divine endowment, as the
pleasures of sense. For neither temperance, nor
any other of the more exalted virtues, can find a
place in that breast which is under the dominion
of the voluptuous passions. Imagine to yourself a
man in the actual enjoyment of the highest gratifi-
cation that his animal nature is capable of receiving ;
there can be no doubt that during his continuance
in that state, it would be utterly impossible for
him to exert any one power of his rational facul-
ties." From hence our philosoj^her inferred " that
the voluptuous enjoyments are attended with a
quality of the most noxious and destructive kind ;
since, in proportion to their strength and duration,
they darken or extinguish every brighter faculty of
the human soul."

Archytas expressed these sentiments in a con
versation with Caius Pontius, father of that famous
Samnite commander who obtained a victoiy over

52 CATO; OR,

the consuls Spiirius Postumius and Titus Veturius,
at the battle of Caudium : and it was related to me
by our faithful ally, and my very worthy host,
Nearchus, of Tarentum. My friend assured me
he received this account by tradition from his
ancestors : and he added, that Plato was a party in
this conversation. This circumstance is indeed by
no means improbable ; as I find that philosopher
visited Tarentum in the consulate of Lucius Camil-
lus and Appius Claudius.

The inference I mean to draw from the authority
I have cited is, that if the principles of reason and
virtue have not been sufficient to inspire us with a
proper contempt for the sensual pleasures, we have
cause to hold ourselves much obliijed to old asre at
least, for weaning us from those appetites which it
would ill become us to gratify. For the voluptuous
passions are utter enemies to all the nobler faculties
of tlie soul ; cast a mist, if I maj' so express it,
before the eye of reason, and hold no sort of com-
merce or communion with the manly virtues.

To illustrate the truth of this assertion by a
particular instance, I will mention a fact concern-
ing Lucius Flamininus, who was brother to that
brave comuian<Ier Titus Flamininus. ft was with
much vecrret that seven years after he had been

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 63

raised to the dignity of consul, I found myself under
the necessity of expelling him from the senate ; but
I thought his scandalous debaucheries ought not to
pass without marks of public disgrace. This un-
worthy man when he commanded, dui'ing his consul-
ship, our army in Gaul, was prevailed upon by his
pathic at an entertainment, to put to death one of
the prisoners who were in confinement for a capital
offence ; and this infamous act escaped with impun-
ity during the time that his brother Titus was
censor. But when I succeeded him in that office,
neither myself nor my colleague Flaccus, could by
any means be induced to think that so wanton and
flagitious an instance of abandoned crueltv and
lewdness ought to pass without severe and dis-
tinguished animadversion ; especially as it reflected
dishonour, not only on the base perpetrator himself,
but in some measure too on the high oflS.ce with
which he was invested.

I have frequently heard from some of my friends
who were much my seniors, a traditionary anecdote
concernmg Fabricius. They assured me, that in
the early part of their lives they were told by
certain very pld men of their acquaintance, that
when Fabricius was ambassador at the court of
Pyrrhus, he expressed great astonishment et the

54 CATO: OR,

account given him by Cineas, of a philosopher at
Athens (for a philosopher, it seems, he styled
himself), who maintained that the love of pleasure
was universally the leading motive of all human
actions. My informers added that when Fabricius
related this fact to Marcus Curius and Titus
Coruncanius, they both joined in wishing that
Pyrrhus and the whole Samnite nation might
become converts to this extraordinary doctrine, as
the people who were infected with such unmanly
principles could not fail, they thought, of proving
an easy conquest to their enemies. Marcus Curius
had been intimately connected with Publius Decius,
who in his fourth consulate (which was five years
before the former entered upon that office) gloriously
sacrificed his life to the preservation of his country.
This generous patriot was personally known like-
wise both to Fabricius and Coruncanius, and they
were convinced by what they experienced in tlieir
own breasts, as well as from the illustrious example
of Decius, that there is in certain actions a natural
grace and beauty that captivate by their intrinsic
charms ; and which, with a nol)le contempt of what
the world calls pleasure, every great and generous
mind will ardently and invariably pursue.

I have dwelt the longer upon this article, in

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 65

order to convince 30U, that the little relish which
old age leaves us for enjoyments of the sensual kind,
is so far from being a just imputation on this period
of life, that on the contrary it very considerably
raises its value. If age render us incapable of
taking an equal share in the flowing cups, and
luxuriant dishes of splendid tables, it secures us
too from their vmhappy consequences— from painful
indigestions, restless nights, and disordered reason.
Accordingly, the divine Plato justly represents
pleasure as the bait by which \T.ce ensnares and
captivates her deluded votaries. But if this en-
ticement • cannot always be resisted, if the palate
must sometimes be indulged, I do not scruple to
say that an old man, although his years will guard
him from excess, is by no means excluded from
enjoying, in a moderate degree, the convivial
gratifications. I remember frequently to have seen,
when I was a boy, that illustrious commander who
obtained our first naval victory over the Cartha-
ginians, the venerable Duilius, returning from
evening entertainments of this festive kind, pre-
ceded by a considerable number of flambeaux and
instruments of music. He seemed particularly
fond of being distinguished by such a pompous and
splendid train ; and indeed he is the first instance

50 CATC ; OB,

of a man not invcstc'd with a public character,
that ventured to appear with this sort of ostenta-
tious parade, a privilege, however, which in consid-
eration of liis heroic achievements, he miglit well
be allowed to assume.

But to 2)ass from the practice of others to my
own, I will acknowledge that I always took a
singular satisfaction in frequenting the meetings
of those little societies which are known by the
name of confraternities, and which were first insti-
tuted when I was quaestor, on occasion of the statue
of Cybele being received into our public worship.
At the return of these anniversary assemblies I
used to partake with my brethren of the society
in their festive meals — -never to excess, indeed ;
but, however, with a certain freedoip natural to
the gay spirits which usually animate that period
of life, and which gradually subside as more serious
years advance. But the principal satisfaction I
received from these entertainments arose much less
from the pleasures of the palate than from the
opportunity they afforded me of enjoj ing the com-
pany and conversation of a very large circle of my
friends. Agreeably to this way of thinking our
ancestors distinguished these kinds of amicable
feasts by the name of convivial banquets, as being

A.N ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 57

chiefly calculated for tlie more rational purposes of
social and friendly intercourse ; whereas the Greeks
denominate them by a term expressive merely of
eating and drinking, as if those two articles, which
ought to be considered as the least and lowest
objects of the meeting, were first and principal in
their estimation. For my own part, I receive so
much pleasure from those hours which are thus
devoted to cheerful discourse, that I love to pro-
long my meals, not only when the company is com-
posed of men of my own years (few of which,
indeed, are now remaining), but when it chiefly
consists of such young persons as yourselves ; and
I acknowledge my obligations to old age for having
increased my passion for the pleasures of conversa-
tion at the same time that it has abated it for those
which depend solely on the palate. I would not,
however, be thought so professed an enemy to the
latter as to deny that, within cex'tain limits, they
may very reasonably, perhaps, be indulged ; and I
declare, for the satisfaction of those who are un-
willing to part with this kind of gratifications, that
I do not find old age is a disqualification for the
enjoyment of them. On the contrary, I take de-
light in joining those social parties where, agreeably
to a good old custom instituted by our ancestors, 3

58 CATO; OR,

president of the club is appointed, and am ranch
diverted to hear him deliver out his important
edicts. I rejoice, too, in those moderate and re-
freshing cups which Socrates recommends in Xeno-
phon's Banquet, and am well pleased with those
artificial methods of cooling, or warming the wine,
as the different seasons of the year in^dte. Even
when I am in the country among my Sabine neigh-
bours I allow myself the same kind of indulgences,
as I every day add one to the number of their
evening societies, which we generally lengthen out
by a variety of amusing conversation till the night
is far advanced.

If it be farther objected " that the pleasures of
the senses are not so exquisite in old age as in
youth," my answer is that neither is tjie inclination
towards them equally strong ; and certainly there
can be no loss where there is no desire. Sophocles,
when he was become old, being asked if he engaged
in amorous commerce with the fair sex 1 " Heaven
forbid ! " replied the venerable bard ; " and glad I
am to have made my escape from the tyranny of so
imperious a passion." The truth is, to be deprived
of enjoyments of this kind may be an uneasy state
perhaps to those who are stimulated by warm
desires ; but where the passion is sufficiently sub-

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 59

dued and extinguished, the privation is more
eligible than the fruition — if, indeed, one can
properly be said to be deprived of a pleasure
who is utterly void of all inclination towards it.
I maintain, therefore, that there is more satisfac-
tion in being delivered from the dominion of this
passion than in its highest gratification.

If it must be admitted that in the fine season of
life the soul receives a stronger and more exquisite
impression from the pleasures of the senses, it will
also be admitted, in the first place, that these
pleasures ai-e in themselves but of little value ; and
in the next, that notwithstanding old age cannot
enjoy them in their utmost extent and perfection,
yet it is not absolutely, however, excluded fi'om
them. If a spectator who sits in the first row of
the theatre enters more thoi'oughly into the beauties
of Turpio's acting than he who is placed in the
remotest ranks, the latter, nevertheless, is not
totally debarred from all share in the entei'tain-
ment. In the same manner, if youth holds a less
obstructed communication with the sensual gratifi-
cations than the circumstances of age will admit,
an old man, though not equally, perhaps, afiected
with delight, feels at least as quick a relish of them
as is necessary to content his more subdued desires.

60 CATO ; OR.

But whatever may be the condition of old age
with respect to the instances I have been exam-
ining, inestimable surely are its advantages if we
contemplate it in another point of view ; if we
consider it as delivering us from the tyranny of
lust and ambition, from the angry and conten-
tious passions, from every inordinate and irrational
desire — in a word, as teaching us to retire within
ourselves, and look for happiness in our own
bosoms ; if to these moral benefits naturally re-
sulting from length of days be added that sweet
food of the mind which is gathered in the fields
of science, I know not any season of life that is
passed more agreeably than the learned leisure of
& virtuous old age.

It was thus, Scipio, that your father's intimate
fi-iend, Caius Gallus, employed himself to the very
last moments of his long life ; and I saw him expire,
I had almost said, in measuring the distances of the
heavenly orbs, and determining the dimensions of
this our earth. How often has the sun risen upon
his astronomical meditations 1 how frequently has
the night overtaken him in the same elevated
studies ! And v/ith what delight did he amuse
himself in predicting to us, long bcjfore they hap-
pened, the several lunar and solar eclipses ! Other

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 61

ingenious applications of the mind there likewise
are — though of a lighter nature, indeed — which
may greatly contribute to enliven and amuse the
concluding scene of human life. Thus Naeviixs in
composing his poem on the Carthaginian war, and
Plautus in writing his two last comedies, filled up
the leisure of their latter days with wonderful com-
placency and satisfaction. I can affirm the same
of our dramatic poet, Livius, whom I remember to
have seen in his old age, for although the first
play he brought upon the stage was in the con-
sidate of Cento and Tuditanus, six years before I
was born, yet his death did not happen till I was
nearly arrived at manhood. To those venerable
personages whom I have already named, I might
add Licinius Crassus, celebrated for his consum-
mate skill in the pontifical and civil laws of his
country, as also Publius Scipio, who very lately,
you know, was elected chief pontiff. These, to-
gether with every one of the rest whom I have
mentioned, I saw in the last period of life pursuing
their respective studies with the utmost ardour
and alacrity. But let me not forget to add to this
memorable list the example of Marcus Cethegus,
whom Ennius justly styled the "soul of eloquence,"
and whom I likewise saw in his old a^e exercisiiio

62 CATO; OR.

even his oratorical talents with uncommon force
and vivacity.

TeU me now, can the gay amusements of the
theatre, the splendid luxuries of tlie table, or the
soft blandishments of a mistress, supply their
votaries with enjoyments that may fairly stand
in competition with these calm delights of the
intellectual pleasures 1 pleasures which, in a mind
rightly formed and properly cultivated, never fail
to improve and gather strength with years. What
Solon, therefore, declares in the verse I just now
cited, that he " learnt something in his old age
every day he lived," is much to his honour ; as,
indeed, to be continually advancing in the paths of
knowledge is one of the most pleasing satisfactions
of the human mind. n

From the pleasures which attend a studious old
age, let us turn our view to those which at that
season of life may be received from country occupa-
tions, of which I profess myself a warm admirer.
These are pleasures perfectly consistent with every
degree of advanced years, as they approach the
nearest of all others to those of the purely philoso-
phical kind ; they are derived from observing the
nature and properties of this our earth, which
yields a ready obedience to the cultivator's in-

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 63

dustrv, and returns with interest whatever he
deposits in her charge ; if not always, indeed, with
equal increase, yet always with some.

But the profit arising from this principle of fer-
tility is by no means, in my estimation, the most
desirable circumstance of the farmer's labours. I
am principally delighted with observing the power,
and tracing the process, of Nature in these her
vegetable productions. Thus when the ground is
sufficiently broken and prepared, the seedsman
disseminates the grain, which is afterwards har-
rowed into the bosom of the earth, by the vital
warmth and moisture of which it is gradually ex-
panded and pushed forth into the green blade ;
this blade shoots up into a knotted stem, which
is nourished and supported by the various fibres of
the root. The stem terminates in the ear, wherein
the grain is lodged in regular order, and defended
from the depredations of the smaller birds by a
number of little bearded spikes. And let me add
(for I take great pleasure in bringing you acquainted
with every article that contributes to soothe and
alleviate my bending years) that I am particu-
larly entertained with marking the growth of the
vine, and following it in its progress from the seed-
plot to its perfect maturity. Not to enlarge on that

64. CATO; OE,

wonderful power with which Nature has endowed
every species of the vegetable kingdom — of con-
tinuing their several kinds by their respective
seeds, and wliich from th^ smallest grain, as the
fig, or from little stones, as the vine, most
amazingly swell into large trunks and branches
— not to dwell, I say, on this method of generation
common to all the various tribes of plants on the
face of the earth, is it possible to observe the dif-
ferent modes of propagating the vine by suckers,
by layers, by the root, or by slips^ without being
affected with the most pleasing admiration 1 This
shrub, which by its form is a trailing plant, must
necessarily creep upon the ground, unless it be
supported, for this reason : Nature has furnished
it with little tendrils, which serve as^ sort of claws
to lay hold of whatever stands within its reach, in
order to raise itself into a more erect posture. And
here the art of the husbandman is required to check
its luxuriant growth, to train the irregular and
depending shoots, and to prevent them, by a judi-
cious pruning, from running into wood. After the
vines have undergone this autumnal dressing they
push forth in spring from the joints of the remain-
in<^ branches little buds, which are distinguished
by the name of gems. From this gem the future

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 65

gi'apes take their rise, which gradually increase in
size by the nourishment they draw from the earth,
in conjunction with the genial warmth of the sun.
At their fii'st appearance they are extremely bitter,
but in process of time, and when duly matured,
they acquire a most sweet and delicious flavour.
In the meanwhile, being covered and guarded by
the leaves, they receive a moderate degree of heat
without being too much exposed to the solar
rays.

There cannot, suFely, be a landscape more
pleasing to the eye, as well as more profitable
to the owner, than a plantation of this kind. It
is not, however, as I have already declared, the
utility resulting from this species of agriculture
with which I am principally charmed ; the mere
cultivation itself of this generous plant, and the
observing of its nature and properties, abstracted
from all considerations of emolument, afford me a
most amusing occupation ; in short, every circum-
stance that relates to the management of this useful
shrub, the regular arrangement of the vine props,
the forming of them into arcades, the pruning
some of the branches, and fixing layers of others,
are employments in which I take much delight.
To this I may add the cutting of proper channels
c— 72

66 CATO; OR,

for supplying the plantation with water, the stir-
ring of the earth round their roots, and the trench-
ing of the ground — works which are in themselves
extremely entertaining, and which greatly contri-
bute at the same time to ameliorate and fertilise
the soil. As to the advantage of manure (an
article which Hesiod has not taken the least notice
of in his poem on husbandry), I have sufficiently
explained my sentiments in the treatise I formerly
published on the same subject. Homer, however
(who flourished, I am inclined to think, many ages
before Hesiod), in that part of the " Odyssey "
where he represents Laertes as diverting his
melancholy for the absence of Ulysses by culti-
vatiiTg his little farm, particularly mentions the
circumstance of his manuring it with compost.

But the amusement of farming is not confined
to one species of agriculture alone, to the cultiva-
tion of vineyards or woodlands, of arable or meadow
grounds ; the orchard, the kitchen-garden, and the
parterre contribute also to diversify its pleasures —
not to mention the feeding of cattle and the rearing
of bees. And besides the entertainment which
arises from planting, I may add the method of
. propagating trees by the means of engrafting, an
art which is one of the most ingenious improve-

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 67

ments, I think, that ever was made in the business
of horticulture.

I might proceed to point out many other
pleasing articles of rural occupations, if I were
not sensible that I have already been too prolix.
But if the love I bear to this agreeable art, to-
gether with that talkative disposition which is
incident to my time of life (for I would not appear
so partial to old age as to vindicate it from all the
infirmities with which it is charged) — if I have
dwelt longer, I say, upon this subject than was
necessary, I rely, my friends, on your indulgence
for a pardon. Suffer me, however, to add that
Manius Curius, after having conquered the Sam-
nites, the Sabines, and even Pyrrhus himself,
passed the honourable remainder of his declining
years in cultivating his farm. The villa in which
he lived is situated at no great distance from my
own, and I can never behold it without reflecting,
with the highest degree of admiration, both on
the singular moderation of his mind and the
general simplicity of the age in which he flourished.
Here it was, while sitting by his fireside, that
he nobly rejected a considerable quantity of gold
which was offered to him on the part of the
Samnites, and rejected it with this memorable

68 CATO: OR.

saying, " that he placed his glory not in the
abundance of his own wnalth, but in commanding
those among whom it abounded." Can it be
doubted that a mind raised and ennobled by such
just and generous sentiments must render old age
a state full of complacency and satisfaction 1

But not to wander from that scene of life in
which I am myself more particularly concerned,
let us return to our farmers. In those good days
I am speaking of, the members of the senate, who
were always men advanced in years, were called
forth from their fields as often as the affairs of
the state demanded their assistance. Thus Cin-
cinnatus was following his plough, when notice
was brouglit to him that he was created Dictator.
It was during his exercise of this high office that
his master of the horse, Servilius Ahala, in con-
sequence of the spirited orders he received from
the Dictator, seized upon Spurius Mielius, and
instantly put him to death before he had time to
execute his traitorous purpose of usurping the
reins of government. Curius, too, and all the
rest of the venerable senators of that age, con-
stantly resided at their villas. For which reason
a particular officer was appointed (called a courier,
from the nature of his employment') whose business

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 69

it was to cfive them notice when there was a
meeting of the senate.

Now tell me, my friends, could the old age of
these respectable patriots, who thus amused their
latter years in cultivating their lands, be justly
deemed a state of infelicity 1 In my opinion, in-
deed, no kind of occupation is more pregnant with
happiness ; not only as the business of husbandry
is of singular utility to mankind in general, but
as being attended also (to repeat what I have
already observed) with peculiar and very con-
siderable pleasures. I w411 add, too, as a farther
recommendation of rural employment (and I
mention it in order to be restored to the good
graces of the voluptuous) that it supplies both the
table and the altar with the greatest variety and
abundance. Accordingly, the magazines of the
skilful and industrious farmer are plentifully stoi'fd
with wine and oil, with milk, cheese, and honey,
as his yards abound with poultry, and his fields
with flocks and herds of kids, lambs, and porkets.
The garden also furnishes him with an additional
source of delicacies ; in allusion to wliich the
farmers pleasantly call a certain piece of ground
allotted to that particular use their dessert. I
must not omit, likewise, that in the intervals of

70 CATO; OB,.

their more important business, and in order to
heighten the relish of tlie rest, the sports of the
field claim a share in the variety of their amuse-
ments.

• I might expatiate on the beauties of their
verdant groves and meadows, on the charming
landscape that their vineyards and their olive-yards
present to view ; but to say all in one word, there
cannot be a more pleasing nor a more profitable
scene than that of a well-cultivated farm. Now old
age is so far from being an obstacle to enjoyments
of this kind that, on the contraiy, it rather in-
vites and allures us to the fruition of them. For
where, let me ask, can a man in that last stage
of life more easily find the comforts in winter of a
warm sun or a good fire 1 or the benefit in summer
of cooling shades and refreshing streams'?

In respect to the peculiar articles of rural
diversions, let those of a more firm and vigorous
age enjoy the robust sports which are suitable to
that season of life ; let them exert their manly
strength and address in darting the javelin, or
contending in the race ; in wielding the bat, or
throv/ing the ball ; in riding, or in swimming ; but
let them, out of the abundance of their many other
recreations, resign to us old fellows the sedentary

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 71

games of chance. Yet if they think proper even
in these to reserve to themselves an exckisive
right, I shall not controvert their claim ; they are
amusements by no means essential to a philosophic
old age.

The writings of Xenophon abound with a variety
of the most useful observations ; and I am pei'-
suaded it is altogether unxaecessary to recommend
them to your careful perusal. In his treatise
entitled " (Economics/' with what a flow of elo-
quence does he break forth in praise of agriculture !
an art above all others, you will obsei've, which
he deemed worthy of a monarch's attention. In
view to this, he introduces Socrates informing his
friend Critobulus, that when Lysander of Lace-
dsemon, a man of great and eminent virtues, was
deputed by the confederate states to the Court of
iSardis with their respective presents to the younger
Cyrus, that great prince, no less distinguished by
his genius than by the glory of his reign, received
him in the most gracious manner ; and, among
other instances of affability, conducted him to an
enclosure laid out with consummate skill and
judgment. Lysander, stricken with the height and
regularity of the trees, the neatness cf the walks
and borders, together with the beauty and fru-

72 CATO; OB.

grauce of the several shrubs and flowers, expressed
gi-eat admiration not only at the industry, but the
genius that was discovered in the scene he was
surveying ; upon which the prince assured him that
the whole was laid out by himself, and that many
of the trees were even planted by his own hand.
Lysander, astonished at this declaration from the
mouth of a monarch whom he beheld arrayed in
all the splendour of Persian magnificence, replied
■with emotion, " O, Cyrus, I am now convinced
that you are really as happy as report has repre-
sented you ; since your good fortune is no less
eminent than your exalted virtues."

The good fortune to which Lysander alluded
is an article of felicity to which old age is by
no means an obstacle ; as the pleasure resulting
from every rational application of the intellectual
faculties, but particularly from the study of hus-
bandry, is consistent even with its latest period.
Accordingly tradition informs us that Valeritis
Corvus, who lived to the age of a hundred, spent
the latter part of his long life in the cultivation
and improvement of Ids farm. It is remarkable
of this celebrated person that no less than forty-
six years intervened between his first and his
last consulship, so tliat his career of honours was

AN ESSAY O^ OLD AGE, 73

equal to that period which our ancestors marked
ou-t for the commencement of old age. But his
felicity did not terminate with his retiring from
public affairs ; on the contrary, he was in one
respect at least even happier in the latter part of
his life than when he filled the first oiSces of the
state ; as his great age, at the same time that it
exempted him from the fatigue of beai-ing an active
part in the administration of -the commonwealth,
added weight and influence to his general credit
and authority.

The crown and glory of grey hairs is, indeed,
that kind of authority which thus arises from a
respectable old age. How considerable did this
appear in those venerable personages — Csecilius
Metellus and Attilius Calatinus ! You remember,
no doubt, the singular and celebrated eulogy in-
scribed on the monument of the latter : that " All
nations agreed in esteeming him as the first of
Romans." The influence he maintained over his
fellow-citizens was certainly founded upon the
most unquestionable claim, since his merit was
thus universally acknowledged and admired. To
the instances already mentioned, I might add our
late chief pontiff" Publius Crassus, together with
Marcus Lepidus, who succeeded him in that dignity.
c*— 72

74 CATO; OR.

And, if it were necessary, I might enlarge this
illustrious list \vith the revered names of Paulus
^milius, Scipio Africanus, and Fabius Maximus,
the latter of whom I have already taken occasion
to mention with peculiar esteem. These were all
of them men of such approved and respected char-
acters, that even their very nod alone carried with
it irresistible authority. In a word, that general
deference which is ever paid to a wise and good
old man, especially if his virtues have been
dignified by the public honours of his country
affords a truer and more solid satisfaction than all
the pleasures which attend on the gay season of life.
But let it be remembered,' my noble friends,
that when I speak thus advantageously of that
portion of life we are now considering, I would be
understood to mean only that respectable old age
which stands supported on the firm foundation of
a well-spent youth. Agreeably to this principle,
I once declared upon a public occasion that
'miserable indeed must that old man be whose
former life stood in need of an apology " — a senti-
ment which, I had the satisfaction to observe,
was received by the whole audience with uncommon
applause. It is not merely wrinkles and grey hairs
which can command that authoritative veneration

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 75

of which I have been speaking. He alone shall
taste this sweet fruit of revered age, whose former
years have been distinguished by an uniform series
of laudable and meritorious actions.

But besides those more important advantages I
have already pointed out as attending an honour-
able old age, it may be further observed that there
are certain customary deferences and attentions
which, although they may be considered perhaps as
common and insignificant ceremonials, are un-
doubtedly, however, very honourable mai'ks of gene-
ral respect. Observances of this kind are strictly
practised in our own country, as indeed they like-
wise are in every other, in proportion to its advance-
ment in civilised and polished manners. It is
said that Lysander, whom I just now took occasion
to mention, used frequently to remark that Lace-
daemon, of all the cities he knew, was the most
eligible for an old man's residence ; and it must
be acknowledged there is no place in the world
where age is treated with so much civility and
regard. Accordingly it is reported that a certain
Athenian, far advanced in years, coming into the
theatre at Athens when it was extremely crowded,
not one of his countrymen had the good manners
to make room for him ; but when he approached

70 CATO; OB,

that part of the theatre which was appropriated to
tlie Lacedjemonian ambassadors, they every one
of them rose up and offered him a place among
them. Repeated claps of applause immediately
ensued from the whole assembly ; upon which one
of the spectators remarked, " that the Athenians
understood politeness much better than they
practised it."

There are many excellent rules established in
the Sacred College of which I am a member ; one
of these, as it relates to the particular circumstance
immediately under consideration, I cannot forbear
mentioning. Every augur delivers his opinion
upon any question in debate according to his
seniority in point of years ; and he takes precedency
of all the younger members, even although they
should be in the highest degree his superiors in
point of rank.

And now I will venture once more to ask if
there is a pleasure in any of the mere sensual grati-
fications which can equal the satisfaction arising
from these valuable privileges thus conferred on
old age 1 To which I will only add that he who
knows how to enjoy these honourable distinctions
with suitable dignity to the conclusion of his days,
may be considered as having supported his pai t on

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. < /

the gi-eat theatre of the world with uniform spirit
and propriety, and not, like an unpractised player,
to have disgracefully failed in the last finishing
act of the drama.

I shall be told, perhaps, that if we look into the
world, we shall find " petulance, moroseness, and
even avarice itself are infirmities which generally
break out and discover themselves in old age."
But the fact is, these moral diseases of the mind
are rather the constitutional imperfections of the
man in whom they reside, than necessary defects
inseparable from the wane of life. Indeed, this
peevishness of temper may — -I will not say be
justified — but certainly at least in some measure
excused from that suspicion which old men are too
apt to entertain of their being generally marked
by the younger part of the world as objects of their
scorn and derision. Add to this, that where the
constitution is broken and worn out, the mind
becomes the more sensible of every little oflence,
and is disposed to magnify unintentional slights
into real and designed insults. But this captious
and irritable disposition incident to this season of
life may be much softened and subdued in a mind
actuated by the principles of good manners and
improved by liberal accomplishments. Examples

78 CATO; OB,

of tliis kind must have occurred to every man's
experience of the world, as they are frequently
exhibited also on the stage. What a striking con-
trast, for instance, between the two old men in
Terence's play called The Brothers ! Mitio is all
mildness and good humour ; whereas Demea, on
the contrary, is represented as an absolute churl.
The fact, in short, is plainly this : as it is not
every kind of wine, so neither is it every sort of
temper, that turns sour by age. But I must
observe at the same time there is a certain gravity
of deportment extremely becoming in advanced
years, and which, as in other virtues, when it
preserves its proper bounds, and does not degene-
rate into an acerbity of manners, I very much
approve. As to avarice, it is inconceivable for
what purpose that passion should find admittance
into an old man's breast. For surely nothing can
be more irrational and absurd than to increase our
provision for the road, the nearer we appi-pach to
our journey's end.

It remains only to consider the fourth and last
imputation on that period of life at which I am
arrived. "Old age, it seems, must necessarily
be a state of much anxiety and disquietude, from
the near appi'oach of death." That the hour of

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 79

dissolution cannot possibly be far distant from an
old man is most undoubtedly certain ; but un-
happy indeed must lie be, if in so long a course
of years be has yet to learn that there is nothing
in that circumstance which can reasonably alarm
his fears. On the contrary, it is an event either
utterly to be disregarded, if it extinguish the soul's
existence, or much to be wished, if it convey her
to some region where she shall continue to exist
for ever. One of those two consequences must
necessarily ensue the disunion of the soul and
body, there is no other possible alternative. What
then have I to fear, if after death I shall either
not be miserable, or shall certainly be happy 1
But after all, is there any man, how young soever
he may be, who can be so weak as to promise him-
self, with confidence, that he shall live even till
night 1 In fact, young people are more exposed to
mortal accidents than even the aged. They are
also not only more liable to natural diseases, but,
as they are generally attacked by them in a more
violent manner, are obliged to obtain their cure,
if they happen to recover, by a more painful course
of medical operations. Hence it is that there are
but few among mankind who arrive at old age ;
and this (to remark it by the way) will suggest a

so CATO ; OR,

reason why the affairs of the world are no better
conducted. For age brings along with it ex-
perience, discretion, and judgment ; without which,
no well-formed government could have been es-
tablished, or can be maintained. But not to
wander from the point under our present con-
sideration, why should death be deemed an evil
peculiarly impending on old age, when daily ex-
perience proves that it is common to every other
period of human lifel Of this truth, both you
and I, Scipio, have a very severe conviction in our
respective families : in yours, by the premature
decease of your two brothers, who had given their
friends a most promising earnest that their merit
would one day raise them to the highest honours
of the state ; and in mine, by the loss of my truly
excellent son.

It will be replied, perhaps, that "youth may
at least entertain the hope of enjoying many
additional years ; whereas an old man cannot
rationally encourage so pleasing an expectation."
But is it not a mark of extreme weakness to rely
upon precarious contingencies, and to consider an
event as absolutely to take place, which is alto-
gether doubtful and uncertain*? But admitting
that the young may indulge this expectation with

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 81

the highest reason, still the advantage evidently
lies on the side of the old ; as the latter is already
in possession of that length of life which the
former can only hope to attain. " Length of life,"
did 1 say ? Good gods ! what is there in the ut-
most extent of human duration that can properly
be called long, even if our days should prove as
numerous as those of Arganthonius, the king of
the Tai'tessi, who reigned, as history tells us,
eighty years, and lived to the age of a hundred
and twenty 1 In my own opinion, indeed, no por-
tion of time can justly be deemed long that will
necessarily have an end, since the longest, when
once it is elapsed, leaves not a trace behind, and
nothing valuable remains with us but the conscious
satisfaction of having employed it well. Thus, hours
and days, months and years glide imperceptibly away
— the past never to return, the future involved in
impenetrable obscurity. But whatever the extent
of our present duration may prove, a wise and
good man ought to be contented with the allotted
measure, remembering that it is in life as on the
stage, whei-e it is not necessary in order to ])e
approved, that the actor's part shordd continue to
the conclusion of the drama ; it is sufficient, in
whatever scene he shall make his final exit, that

82 CATO; OR.

he supports the character assigned him with de-
served applause. The truth is, a small portion of
time is abundantly adequate to the purposes of
honour and virtue. But should our years continue
to Ije multiplied, a wise man will no more lament
his entrance into old age than the husbandman
regrets, when the bloom and fragrancy of the
spring is passed away, that summer or autumn is
arrived. Youth is the vernal season of life, and
the blossoms it then puts forth are indications
of those future fruits whi(5h are to be gathered in
the succeeding periods. Now the proper fruit to
be gathered in the winter of our days is, as I have
repeatedly observed, to be able to look back with
self-approving satisfaction on the happy and abun-
dant produce of more active years.

But to i-esume the principal point we were
discussing. Every event agreeable to the course
of nature ought to be looked upon as a real good,
and surely none can be more natural than for an
old man to die. Tt is true, youth likewise stands
exposed to the same dissolution, but it is a dis-
solution contrary to Nature's evident intentions,
and in direct opposition to her strongest efforts.
In the latter instance, the privation of life may be
resembled to a fire forcibly extinguished l)y a

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 83

deluge of water ; in the former, to a fire spon-
taneously and gradually going out from a total
consumption of its fuel. Or to have recourse to
another illustration, as fruit before it is ripe
cannot, without some degree of force, be separated
from the stalk, but drops of itself when perfectly
mature, so the disunion of the soul and body is
effected in the young by dint of violence, but is
wrought in the old by a mere fulness and com-
pletion of years. This ripeness for death I per-
ceive in myself, with much satisfaction ; and I
look forward to my dissolution as to a secure
haven, whei-e I shall at length find a happy repose
from the fatigues of a long voyage.

Every stage of human life, except the last, is
marked out by certain and defined limits ; old age
alone has no precise and determinate boundary.
It may well therefore be sustained to any period,
how far soever it may be extended, provided a
man is capable of performing those ofiices which
are suited to this season of life, and preserves at
the same time a perfect indifference with respect
to its continuance. Old age under these circum-
stances, and with these sentiments, may be ani-
mated with more courage and fortitude than is
usually found even in the prime of life. Ac-

84 CATO ; OB.

cordingly Solon, it is said, lieing questioned by the
tyrant Pisistratus, what it was tliat inspired him
with the boldness to oppose his measures, bravely
replied, " My old age." Nevertheless, the most
desirable manner of yielding up our lives is when
Nature herself, while our understanding anfl our
other senses still remain unimpaired, thinks proper
to destroy the work of her own hand, as the artist
who constructed the machine is best (jualified to
take it to pieces. In short, an old man should
neither be anxioiis to preserve the small portion of
life which remains to him, nor forward to resign
it without a just cause. It was one of the pro-
hibitions of Pythagoras " not to quit our post of
life without being authorised by the Commander
who placed us in it," that is, not without the per-
mission of the Supreme Being."

The epitaph which the wise Solon ordered to be
inscribed on his monument, expresses his wish that
his death might not pass undistinguished by the
sorrowful exclamations of his surviving friends.
It was natural, I confess, to desire to be remem-
bered with regret by those with whom he had
been intimately and tenderly connected ; yet I am
inclined to give the prefeience to the sentiment of
Ennius, in those famous lines —

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 85

" Nor loud lament nor silent tear deplore
The fate of Ennius when he breathes no more."

In this poet's estimation, death, which opens the
way to immortality, is by no means a subject of
reasonable lamentation. The act of dying may
indeed be attended with a sense of pain ; but a
pain, however, which cannot be of long continuance,
especially to a man greatly advanced in years.
And as to the consequence of death, it must either
be a state of total insensibility, or of sensations
much to be desired. This is a truth upon which
we ought continually to meditate from our earliest
youth, if we would be impressed with a just and
firm contempt of death ; as without this impression
it is impossible to enjoy tranquillity. For as death
is a change which, sooner or later, perhaps even
this very moment, we must inevitably undergo,
is it possible that he who lives in the perpetual
dread of an event with whicli he is every instant
threatened, should know the satisfaction of j)OS-
sessing an undisturbed repose and serenity of
mindl

When I reflect on the conduct of Junius Brutus,
who lost his life in the support of the liberties of
his country ; on the two Decii, who rushed to
certain death from the same patriotic principle ;

86 CAtO; OR,

on Mai'cus Attilius, who delivered himself up to
the torture of a most cruel execution, that he might
not forfeit his word of honour which he had
pledged to the enemy ; on the two Scipios, who, if
it had been possible, would willingly have formed
a rampart with their own bodies against the inva-
sion of the Carthaginians ; on Lucius Paulus, your
illustrious grandfather, who by his heroic death
expiated the ignominy we sustained by the temerity
of his colleague at the battle of Cannae ; on Marcus
Marcellus, whose magnanimity was so universally
respected that even the most cruel of our enemies
would not suffer his dead body to be deprived of
funeral honours — when I reflect, I say, not only on
the generous contempt of life which these heroic
personages exhibited, but that whole legions of our
troops (particular instances of which I have pro-
duced in my treatise on Roman Antiquities) have
frequently marched, with undaunted courage and
even alacrity, to attacks from which they were
well persuaded not one of them could live to
return, it should seem there is little occasion to
enlarge iipon the contempt of death. For if the
very common soldiers of our armies, who are fre-
quently raw, illiterate young peasants, are thus
capable of despising its imaginary terrors, shall old

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 8?

age, with all the superior advantages of reason and
philosophy, tremble at the thoughts of its near
approach 1

Tlie distaste with which, in passing through the
several stages of our present being, we leave behind
us the respective enjoyments peculiar to each, must
necessarily, I should think, in the close of its
latest period, render life itself no longer desirable.
Infancy and youth, manhood and old age, have each
of them their peculiar and appropriated pursuits.
But does youth regret the toys of infancy, or man-
hood lament that it has no longer a taste for the
amusements of youth? The season of manhood
has also its suitable objects, that are exchanged for
others in old age ; and these, too, like all the pre-
ceding, become languid and insipid in their turn.
Now when this state of absolute satiety is at
length aiTived, when we have enjoyed the satis-
factions peculiar to old age, till we have no longer
any relish remaining for them, it is then that death
may justly be considered as a mature and season-
able event.

And now, among the different sentiments of the
philosophers concerning the consequence of our
final dissolution, may I not venture to declare my
own 1 and the rather, as the nearer death advances

88 CATO; OR,

towards me, the more clearly I seem to discern its
real nature.

I am well convinced, then, that my dear departed
friends,^ your two illustrious fathers, are so far
from liaA ing ceased to live, that the state they now
enjoy can alone with propriety be called life. The
soul, during her confinement within this prison of
the body, is doomed by fate to undergo a severe
penance. For her native seat is in heaven ; and
it is with reluctance that she is forced down from
those celestial mansions into these lower regions,
where all is foreign and repugnant to her divine
nature. But the gods, I am persuaded, have thus
widely disseminated immortal spirits, and clothed
them with human bodies, that there might be a
race of intelligent creatures, not only to have
dominion over this our earth, but to contemplate
the host of heaven, and imitate in their moral
conduct the same beautiful order and uniformity so
conspicuous in those splendid orbs. This opinion
I am induced to embrace, not only as agreeable to
the best deductions of reason, but in just deference
also to the authority of the noblest and most dis-
tinguished philosophers. Accordingly, Pythagoras
and his followers (who were formerly distinguished
by the name of the Italic Sect) firmly maintained

«

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 89

that the human soul is a detached part, or emana-
tion, from the great universal soul of the world.
I am further confirmed in my belief of the soul's
immortality, by the discourse which Socrates, whom
the oracle of Apollo pronounced to be the wisest of
men, held upon this subject just befoi'e his death.
In a word, when I consider the faculties with
which the human mind is endowed ; its amazing
celerity ; its wonderful power in recollecting past
events, and sagacity in discerning future; together
with its numberless discoveries in the several arts
and sciences — I feel a conscious conviction that
this active comprehensive principle cannot possibly
be of a mortal nature. And as this unceasing
activity of the soul derives its energy from its own
intrinsic and essential powers, without receiving it
from any foreign or external impulse, it necessarily
follows (as it is absurd to suppose the soul would
desert itself) that its acti^aty must continue for
ever. But farther : as the soul is evidently a
simple uncompounded substance, without any dis-
similar parts or heterogeneous mixture, it cannot
therefore be divided, consequently it cannot perish.
I might add that the facility and expedition with
which youth are taught to acquire numberless very
difficult arts, is a strong presumption that the soul

90 CATO; OR,

possessed a considerable portion of knowledge before
it entered into the human form; and that what
seems to be received from instruction is, in fact,
no other than a reminiscence, or recollection, of
its former ideas. This, at least, is the opinion of
Plato.

Xenophon, likewise, represents the elder Cyrus,
in his last moments, as expi-essing his belief in the
soul's immortality in the following terms : " O,
my sons, do not imagine when death shall have
separated me from you that I shall cease to exist.
You beheld not my soul whilst I continued amongst
you, yet you concluded that I had one, from the
actions you saw me perform ; infer the same when
you shall see me no more. If the souls of de-
parted worthies did not watch over and guard their
surviving fame, the renown of their illustrious
actions would soon be worn out of the memory of
men. For my own part, I never could be per-
suaded tliat the soul could properly be said to live
whilst it remained in this mortal body, or that it
ceased to live when death had dissolved the vital
union. I never could believe either that it became
void of sense when it escaped from its connection
with senseless matter, or that its intellectual powers
weie not enlaiged and improved when it was dis-

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 91

charged and i-efined from all corporeal admixture.
When death has disunited the human frame, we
clearly see what becomes of its material parts, as
they apparently return to the several elements out
of which they were originally composed ; but the
soul continues to remain invisible, both when she
is present in the body, and when she departs out of
it. Nothing so nearly resembles death as sleep,
and nothing so strongly intimates the divinity of
the soul as what passes in the mind upon that
occasion. For the intellectual principle in man,
during this state of relaxation and freedom from
external impressions, frequently looks forward into
futurity, and discerns events ere time has yet
brought them forth — a plain indication this what
the powei's of the soul will hereafter be, when she
shall be delivered from the restraints of her present
bondage. If I should not therefore be mistaken
in this my firm persuasion, you will have reason,
my sons, when death shall have removed me from
your view, to revere me as a sacred and celestial
spirit. But although the soul should perish with
the body, I recommend it to you, nevertheless, to
honour my memory with a pious and inviolable
regai-d, in obedience to the immortal gods, by
v.'hose power and providence this beautiful fabric

02 CATO; OR.

of the universe is sustained and governed." Such
were the sentiments of the dying Cyrus ; permit
me now to express my own.

Never, Scipio, can I believe that your illustrious
ancestors, together with many other excellent per-
sonages, whom I need not particularly name, would
have so ardently endeavoured to merit the honour-
able remembrance of posterity, had they not been
persuaded that they had a real interest in the
opinion which future genei'ations might entertain
concerning them. And do you imagine, my noble
friends (if I may be indulged in an old man's
privilege to boast of himself), do you imagine I
would have undergone those labours I have sus-
tained, both in my civil and military employments,
if I had supposed that the conscious satisfaction I
received from the glory of my actions was to
terminate with my present existence ? If sucli
had been my persuasion, would it not have been
far better and more rational to have passed my
days in an undisturbed and indolent repose, with-
out labour and without contention 1 But my
mind, by I know not what secret impulse, was
ever raising its views into future ages, strongly
persuaded that I sliould then only begin to live
when I ceased to exist in the present world.

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 93

Indeed, if the soul were not naturally immortal,
never, surely, would the desire of immortal gloiy
be a passion which always exerts itself with tlie
greatest force in the noblest and most exalted
bosoms.

Tell me, my friends, whence it is that those
men who have made the greatest advances in true
wisdom and genuine philosophy are observed to
meet death with the most perfect equanimity ;
while the ignorant and unimproved part of our
species generally see its approach with the utmost
discomposure and reluctance ■? Is it not because
the more enlightened the mind is, and the farther
it extends its view, the more clearly it discerns in
the hour of its dissolution (what narrow and. vulgar
souls are too short-sighted to discover) that it is
taking its flight into some happier region 1

For my own part, I feel myself transported with
the most ardent impatience to join the society of
my two departed friends, your illustrious fathers,
whose characters I greatly res]Dected, and whose
persons I sincerely loved. Nor is this, my earnest
desire, confined to those excellent persons alone
with whom I was formerly connected ; I ardently
wish to visit also those celebrated worthies, of
whose honourable conduct I have heard and read

94 CATO ; OR,

mucli, or whose virtues I have myself commonio-
rated in some of my writings. To this glorious
assembly I am speedily advancing ; and T would
not be turned back in my journey, even upon the
assured condition that my youth, like that of
Pelias, should again be restored. The sincere truth
is, if some divinity would confer upon me a new
grant of my life, and replace me once more in the
cradle, I would utterly, and without the least
hesitation, reject the offer ; having well-nigh
j&nished my race, I have no inclination to return to
the goal. For what has life to recommend it?
Or rather, indeed, to what evils does it not expose
us 1 But admit that its satisfactions are many,
yet surely there is a time when we have had a
sufficient measure of its enjoyments, and may well
depart contented with our share of the feast ; for I
mean not, in imitation of some very considerable
philosophers, to represent the condition of human
nature as a subject of just lamentation. On the
contrary, I am far from regretting that life was
bestowed upon me, as I have the satisfaction to
think that I have employed it in such a manner as
not to have lived in vain. In short, I consider
this world as a place which nature never designed
for my permanent abode, and I look upon my

AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE. 95

departure out of it, not as being driven from my
habitation, but as leaving my inn.

O, glorious day, when I shall retire from this
low and sordid scene, to associate with the divine
assembly of departed spirits, and not with those
only whom I just now mentioned, but with my
dear Cato, that best of sons and most valuable of
men. It was my sad fate to lay his body on the
funeral pile, when by the course of nature I had
reason to hope he would have performed the same
last office to mine. His soul, however, did not
desert me, but still looked back upon me in its
flight to those happy mansions, to which he was
assured I should one day follow him. If I seemed
to bear his death with fortitude, it was by no means
that I did not most sensibly feel the loss I had
sustained ; it was because I supported myself with
the consoling reflection that we could not long be
separated.

Thus to think and thus to act has enabled me,
Scipio, to bear up under a load of years with that
ease and complacency which both you and Ufelius
have so frequently, it seems, remarked with admira-
tion ; as indeed it has rendered my old age not only
no inconvenient state to me, but even an agreeable
one. And after all should this my firm persuasion

9fi CATO; OR, AN ESSAY ON OLD AGE.

of the soul's immortality prove to be a mere dehj-
sion, it is at least a pleasing delusion, and I will
cherish it to my latest breath. I have the satisfac-
tion in the meantime to be assured that if death
should utterly extinguish my existence, as some
minute philosophers assert, the groundless hope I
entertained of an after-life in some better state
cannot expose me to the derision of these wonderful
sages, when they and T shall be no more. In all
events, and even admitting that our expectations
of immortality are utterly vain, there is a certain
period, nevertheless, when death would be a con-
summation most earnestly to be desired. For
Nature has appointed to the days of man, as to all
things else, their pi'oper limits, beyond which they
are no longer of any value. In fine, old age may
be considered as the last scene in the great drama
of life, and one would not, surely, wish to lengthen
out his part till he sunk down sated with repetition
and exhausted with fatigue.

These, my noble friends, are the reflections I had
to lay before you on the subject of old age, a period
to which, I hope, you will both of you in due time
arrive, and prove by your own experience the truth
of what 1 have asserted to you on mine.

L^LIUS;

OE,

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP.

D — r.

L^LIU S;

OK, AN

ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP.

To Titus Pomponius Atticus.

QuiNTUS Mucius, the Augur, used to relate, in a
very agreeable manner, a variety of particulars
which he remembered concerning his father-in-law,
the sage. Lfelius, as he constantly styled him. My
father introduced me to Mucius as soon as I was
invested with the manly robe, and he so strongly
recommended him to my observance that I never
neglected any opportunity in my power of attend-
ing him. In consequence of this privilege I had
the advantage to hear him occasionally discuss
several important topics, and throw out many
judicious maxims, which I carefully treasured up
in my mind, endeavouring to improve myself in
wisdom and knowledge by the benefit of his en-
lightening observations. After his death I attached
myself in the same manner, and with the same
views, to his relation, Mucius Scsevola, the chief

ICO L^LIUS ; OR,

pontiff ; and I will venture to say that, in regard
both to tlie powers of his mind and the integrity of
his heart, Rome never produced a greater nor more
respectable character. But I shall take some other
occasion to do justice to the merit of this excellent
man ; my present business is solely with the
Augur.

h' As I was one day sitting with him and two or
three of his intimate acquaintance in his semi-
circular apartment where he usually received
company, among several other points he fell into
discourse upon an event which had lately happened,
and was, as you well know, the general subject of
conversation ; for you cannot but remember (as
yon were much connected with one of the parties)
that when Publius Sulpicius was Tribune, and
Quintus Pompeius Consul, the implacable animosity
that broke out between them, after having lived
together in the most affectionate union, was univer-
sally mentioned with concern and surprise. Mucins
having casually touched upon this unexpected
rupture, took occasion to relate to us the substance
of a conference which Lajlius formerly held with
him and his other son-in law, Caius Fannius, a few
days after the death of Scipio Africanus, upon the
BuV)ject of Friendship. As I perfectly well recollect

AN ESSAY ON FETENDSHIP. 101

the general purport of the relation he gave us, I
have wi'ought it up, after my own manner, in the
following essay. But that I might not encumber
the dialogue with perpetually interposing " said I "
and " said he," I have introduced the speakers them-
selves to the reader, by which means he may
consider himself as a sort of party in the con-
ference.

0 ' It turns on a subject upon which you have
frequently pi-essed me to write my thoughts, and,
indeed, besides being peculiarly suitable to that
intimacy which has so long subsisted between us,
it is well worthy of being universally considered
and understood. I have the more willingly, there-
fore, entered into the discussion you recommended,
as it affords me an opportunity of rendering a
general service at the same time that I am comply
ing with your particular request.

In the treatise I lately inscribed to you on Old
Age, I represented the elder Cato as the principal
speaker, being persuaded that no person could,
with more weight and propriety, be introduced as
delivering his ideas in relation to that advanced
state than one who had so long flourished in it
with unequalled spirit and vigour. In pursuance
of the same principle, the memorable amity which.

102 lii^Lius: OR.

we are told, subsisted between Ltelius and Scipio
rendered the former, I thouglit, a very suitable
character to support a conversation on the subject
of Friendship, and the reasoning I have ascribed to
him is agreeable to those sentiments which Mucius
informed us he expressed.

This kind of dialogue, where the question is
agitated by illustrious personages of former ages, is
apt, I know not how, to make a stronger impression
on the mind of the reader than any other species of
composition. This effect, at least, I have expe-
rienced in my own writings of that kind, as I have
sometimes imagined, when I was revising the essay
T lately inscribed to you, that Cato himself, and
not your friend in his name, was the real speaker.
As in that performance it was one veteran address-
ing another on the article of Old Age, so in the
present it is a friend explaining to a friend his
notions concerning Friendship. In the former con-
ference, Cato, who was distinguished among his
contemporaries by his gi-eat age and superior
wisdom, stands forth as the principal speaker ; in
this which I now present to you, Lselius, who was
no less respected in the times in which he flourished
for his eminent virtues and faithful attachment to
his friend, takes the lead in the discourse. I must

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 103

request you, therefore, to turn your thoughts a
while from the writer and suppose yourself con-
versing with Lselius.

For this purpose you are to imagine Fannius
and Mucins makina; a visit to their father-in-law
soon after the death of Scipio Africanus, and from
that circumstance giving occasion to Lselius to
enter upon the subject in question. I will only
add that in contemplating the portrait of a true
Friend, as delineated in the following pages, you
cannot be at a loss to discover your own.

-> Fannius. — I agree with you entirely, Lselius, no
man ever possessed more amiable or more illus-
trious virtues than Scipio Africanus. Nevertheless,
let me entreat you to remember that the public eye
is particularly turned towards you upon the j^resent
occasion, and extremely attentive to observe how
Loelius, the sage Lselius (as, by a very singular
distinction you are universally both called and
acknowleaged) behaves under the great loss he has
sustained. When I say "by a very singiilar dis-
tinction," I am not ignorant that the late Marcus
Cato, in our own times, and Lucius Attilius, in the
days of our forefathers, were generally mentioned

104 L^LIUS; OR,

witli the same honourable addition ; but I know,
too, that it was for attainments somewhat difl'erent
from tliose which have so justly occasioned it to be
conferred on you. To the latter it was given in
allusion to his eminent skill in the laws of his
country, as it was to the former on account of the
wonderful compass and variety of his knowledge,
together with his great experience in the affairs of
the world. Indeed, the many signal proofs that
Cato gave, both in the forum and the senate, of his
judgment, his spirit, and his penetration, produced
such frequent occasions to speak of his wisdom
witli admiration, that the epithet seems, by con-
tiiaually recurring, to have been considered in his
latter days as his original and proper name. But
the same appellation (and I cannot forbear repeat-
ing it again) has been conferred on you for qualifi-
cntions not altogether of the same nature ; not
merely in respect to the superior excellency of your
political accomplishments and those intellectual
endowments which adorn your mind, but prin-
cipally in consequence of the singular advancement
you have made in the study and practice of moral
wisdom. In short, if Lselius is never named with-
out the designation I am speaking of, it is not so
much in the popvdar as in the ]ihilosophical sense

AN ESSAT ON FRIENDSHIP. 105

of the term that this characteristic is applied to
him, and in that sense I will venture to say there
is not a single instance throughout all the states of
Greece of its ever having been thus attributed to
any man by the unanimous consent of a whole
people. For as to those famous sages who are
commonly known by the general denomination of
" the seven wise men of Greece," it is asserted by
the most accurate inquirers into their history that
they cannot properly be ranked in the class of
moral philosophers. One celebrated Gi'ecian, how-
ever, there was, a native of Athens, whom the
oracle of Apollo declared to be the wisest of the
sons of men, and believe me, Lselius, it is the same
species of wisdom which this excellent moralist
displayed that all the world is agi-eed in ascribing
to you ; that wisdom, I mean, by which you hold
virtue to be capable of fortifying the soul against
all the various assaults of human calamities, and
are taught to consider happiness as depending upon
yourself alone.

In consequence of this general opinion I have
been frequently asked (and the same question, I
believe, has no less often, Scsevola, been proposed
to you) in what manner Ljelius supports the loss
he has lately sustained. And this inquiry was the
D*— 72

106 L^LIUS; OR,

ratlier made, as it was remarked that you absented
yourself from our last monthly meeting in the
gardens of Brutus, the Augur, where you had
always before very regularly assisted.

Sc.EVoLA. — I acknowledge, Lselius, that the
question which Fannius mentions has repeatedly
been put to me by many of my acquaintance, and
I have always assured them that, as far as I could
observe, you received the wound that has been in-
flicted upon you by the death of your aiTectionate
and illustrious friend with great composure and
equanimity. Nevertheless, that it was not possible,
nor indeed consistent with the general humane dis-
position of your nature, not to be affected by it in
a very sensible manner ; however, that it was by
no means grief, but merely indisposition, which
prevented you from being present at the last meet-
ing of our assembly.

LjELIUS. — Your answer, Scsevola, was perfectly
agreeable to the fact. Ill, certainly, would it be-
come me, on account of any private affliction, to
decline a conference which I have never failed to
attend when my health permitted. And, indeed, I
am persuaded that no man who possesses a proper
firmness of mind will suffer his misfortunes, how
heavily soever they may press upon his heart, to

AN ESSAY ON FKIENDSHIP. 107

interrupt his duties of any kind. For the rest, I .^
consider the high opinion, Fannius, which jon sup-
pose the world entertains of ray character, as an
obliging proof of your friendship ; but it is an
opinion which, as I am not conscious of deserving,
I have no disposition to claim. As little am I in-
clined to subscribe to your judgment concerning
Oato ; for if consummate wisdom, in the moral and
philosophic idea of that expression, was ever to be
found in the character of any human being (which,
I will confess, however, I very much doubt), it
cei'tainly appeared throughout the whole conduct
of that excellent person. Not to mention other
proofs, with what unexampled fortitude, let me
ask, did he support the death of his incomparable
son ? I was no stranger to the behaviour of Paulus,
and was an eye-witness to that of Gallus, labouring
under an affliction of the same kind ; but the sons
whom they were respectively bereaved of died when
they were mere boys. Whereas Cato's was snatched
from him when he had arrived at the prime of man-
hood and was flourishing in tlie general esteem of
his country. Let me caution you, then, from suffer-
ing any man to rival Cato in your good opinion,
not excepting even him whom the oracle of Apolio,
yon say, declared to be the wisest of the Immau

108 L^LIUS ; OR,

race. The truth is, the memory of Socrates is held
in honour for the admirable doctrine he delivered,
but Cato's for the glorious deeds he performed.

Thus far in particular reply to Fannius. I now
address myself to both ; and if I were to deny that
I regret the death of Scipio, how far such a dis-
position of mind would be right, I leave philo-
sophers to determine. But far, I confess, it is from
the sentiments of my heart. I am sensibly, indeed,
afiected by the loss of a friend whose equal no man,
I will venture to say, ever possessed before, and
none, I am persuaded, will ever meet with again.
Nevertheless, I stand in want of no external assist-
ance to heal the wound I have received. My own
reflections supply me with sufficient consolation.
And I find it principally from not having given
in to that false opinion which adds poignancy to
the grief of so many others under a loss of the same
kind. For I am convinced there is no circumstance
in the death of Scipio that can justly be lamented
with respect to himself. Whatever there is of
private misfortune in that event consists entirely
in the loss which I have sustained. Under the full
influence of such a persuasion, to indulge unre.
sti'ained sorrow would be a proof not of a generous
affectio7\ to one'R friend, but of too interested a

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 109

concern for one's self. It is evident, indeed, that
the colour of Scipio's days has, in every view of it,
proved truly bright and glorious. For tell me, my
friends, is there a felicity (unless he wished never
to die — a wish, I am confident, he was too wise to
entertain), is there a single article of human happi-
ness that can i-easonably be desired which he did
not live to attain ? The high expectations the
world had conceived of him in his earliest youth
were more than confirmed in his riper years, as his
virtues shone forth with a lustre superior even to
the most sanguine hopes of his country. He was
twice, without the least solicitation on his own
part, elected consul ; the first time before he was
legally qualified by his age to be admitted into that
office, and the next, although not prematurely with
respect to himself, yet it had well-nigh proved too
late for his country. In both instances, however,
success attended his arms, and having levelled Avith
the ground the capitals of two states the most in-
veterately hostile to the Roman name, he not only
happily terminated the respective wars, but secured
us from all apprehension of future danger from the
same powers. I forbear to enlarge upon the afia-
bility of his manners, the affection he showed to his
mother, the generosity he exercised towards hia

1 10 LiELITTS ; OE,

sisters, the kindness witli which he behaved to the
rest of his family, and the unblemished integrity
that influenced every part of his conduct. They
were qualities in his exemplary and amiable charac-
ter with which you are perfectly well acquainted.
It is equally unnecessary to add how sincerely he
was beloved by his country ; the general concern
that appeared at his funeral renders it sufficiently
evident. What increase, then, could the addition
of a few more years have made to the glory and
happmess of his life % For admitting that old age
does not necessarily bring on a state of imbecility
(as Cato, I remember, maintained in a conversation
with Scipio and myself about a year before his
death), it certainly impairs, at least, that vigour
and vivacity which Scipio still possessed at the
time of his decease.

Such, then, was the course of his happy and
honourable days, that neither his felicity nor his
fame could have received any farther increase.
And as to his death, it was much too sudden to
have been attended with any sensible degree of
pain. By what cause that unexpected event was
occasioned is by no means indeed clear ; the
general suspicions concerning it you weU know.
One circumstance, at least, is unquestionable : that

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. Ill

of all the many brilliant days he had enjoyed, the
last of his life was the most completely illustrious.
For it was on the very evening which preceded his
death that he received the singular honour, at the
breaking up of the senate, of l^eing conducted to
his house by all the members of that august
assembly, attended by the several ambassadors
both from Latium and the allies of the Roman
Commonwealth. So that he cannot, it should seem,
so properly be said to have descended into the
regions of the infernal deities as to have passed at
once from the supreme height of human glory to
the mansions of the celestial gods. For I am by
no means a convert to the new doctrine which cer-
tain philosophers have lately endeavoured to propa-
gat,e ; who maintain that death extinguishes the
whole man, and his soul perishes with the disso-
lution of his body. Indeed, the practice of our
ancestors alone, abstracted from the opinion of the
ancient sages, weighs more with me than all the
arguments of these pretended reasoners. For cer-
tainly our forefathers would not so religiously have
observed those sacred rites which have been insti-
tuted in honour of the dead if they had supposed
that the deceased were in no respect concerned
in the performance of them. But the conviction

112 L.KLIUS; OR,

arising from this consideration is much strength-
ened when I add to it the authority of those great
masters of reason, who enlightened our country by
the schools they established in Great Greece, during
the flourishing ages of that now deserted part of
Italy. And what has a still farther influence in
determining my persuasion is the opinion of that
respectable moralist who, in the judgment of Apollo
himself, was declared to be the wisest of mankind.
This incomparable philosopher, without once vary-
ing to the opposite side of the question (as his
custom was upon many other controverted sub-
jects), steadily and firmly asserted that tlie human
soul is a divine and immortal substance, that death
opens a way for its return to the celestial mansions,
and that the spirits of those just men who have
made the greatest progress in the paths of virtue
find the easiest and most expeditious admittance.
This also was the opinion of my departed friend:
an opinion which you may remember, Scsevola, he
particularly enlarged upon in that conversation
which, a very .short time before his death, he held
with you and me, in conjunction with Philus,
Manilius, and a large company of his other friends,
on the subject of government. For in the close of
that conference, which continued, you know, during

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 113

three successive days, he related to us (as if he had
been led into the topic by a kind of presentiment
of his approaching fate) a discourse which Afri-
canus delivered to him in a vision during his sleep
concerning the soul's immortality.

If it be true, then, that the souls of good men,
when enlarged from this corj^oreal prison, wing
their flight into the heavenly mansions with more
or less ease in proportion to their moral attain-
ments, what human spirit can we suppose to have
made its immediate way to the gods with greater
facility than that of Scipio 1 To bewail, therefore,
an event attended with such advantageous con-
sequences to himself would, I fear, have more the
appearance of envy than of friendship. But should
the contrary opinion prove to be the fact, should
the soul and body really j^erish together, and no
sense remain after oiu' dissolution, yet death, al-
though it cannot indeed, upon this supposition, be
deemed a happiness to my illustrious friend, can by
no means however be considered as an eviL For
if all perception be totally extinguished in him, he
is, with respect to everything that concerns him-
self, in the same state as if he had never been born.
I say " with respect to himself," for it is far other-
wise with regard to his friends and to his country,

Hi hJEhJVS; OR,

8S both will have reason to rejoice in his having
lived so long as their own existence shall endure.

In every view, therefore, of this event, consider-
ing it merely as it relates to my departed friend, it
appears, as I observed before, to be a happy con-
summation. But it is much otherwise with regard
to myself, who, as I entered earlier into the world,
ought, according to the common course of nature,
to have sooner departed out of it. Nevertheless,
I derive so much satisfaction from reflecting on the
friendship whicli subsisted between us, that I can-
not but think I have reason to congratulate my-
self on the felicity of my life, since I have had the
happiness to pass the greatest part of it in tlie
society of Scipio. We lived under the same roof,
passed together through the same military employ-
ments, and were actuated in all our pursuits,
whether of a public or private nature, by the same
common principles and views. In short, and to
express at once the whole spirit and essence of
friendship, our inclinations, our sentiments, and
our studies were in perfect accord. For these
reasons my ambition is less gratified by that high
opinion (especially as it is unmerited) which Fannius
assures me the world entertains of my wisdom, than
by the strong expectations I have conceived that

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 115

the memory of our fi'iendship will prove immortal.
I indulge this hope with the greater confidence as
there do not occur in all the annals of past ages
above three or four instances of a similar amity.
-And future times, I trust, will add the names of
Scipio and Lselius to that select and celebrated
number.

Fannius. — Your expectations, Lselius, cannot
fail of being realised. And now, as you have
mentioned Friendship, and we are entirely dis-
engaged, it would be extremely acceptable to me
(and I am persuaded it would likewise be so to
Scsevola) if, agreeably to your usual readiness upon
other occasions of just inquiry, you would give us
your opinion concerning ths true nature of this
connection, the extent of its obligations, and the
maxims by which it ought to be conducted.

SCiEVOLA. — Fannius has prevented me in the
request I was intending to make ; your com-
pliance, therefore, will equally confer an obliga-
tion upon both of us.
A.P'ii- LiELius. — I should very willingly gratify your '7
desires if I thought myself equal to the task, for
the subject is interesting, and we are at present, as
Fannius observed, entirely at leisure ; but I am
too sensible of my own insufficiency to venture

116 L^LITTS; OR,

thus unprepared upon the disquisition of a topic
which requires much consideration to be treated as
it deserves. Unpremeditated dissertations of tliis
kind can only be expected from those Grecian
geniuses, who are accustomed to speak on the
sudden upon any given question ; and to those
learned dis})utants I must refer you, if you wish
to hear the subject properly discussed. As for my-
self, I can only exhort you to look on Friendship as
the most valuable of all human possessions, no
other being equally suited to the moral nature of '
man^ or so applicable to every state and circum-
stance, whether of prosperity or adversity, in which
he can possibly be placed. But at the same time I
lay it down as a fundamental axiom that " true
Friends! lip can only subsist between those who are
animated by the strictest principles of honour and
virtue." Wlien I say this, I would not be thought
to adopt the sentiments of those speculative
moralists who pretend that no man can justly
be deemed virtuous who is not arrived at that
state of absolute perfection which constitutes,
according to their ideas, the character of genuine
wisdom. This opinion may appear true, perhaps,
in theory, but is altogether inapplicable to any
useful puipose of society, as it supposes a degree

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 117

of virtue to which no mortal was ever capable of
rising. It is not, therefore, that notional species
of merit which imagination my possibly conceive,
or our wishes perhaps form, that we have reason to
expect and require in a friend ; it is those moi'al
attainments alone which we see actually realised
among mankind. And, indeed, I can never be
persuaded to think that either Fabricius, or Corun-
canius, or Curius, whom our forefather's justly
revered for the superior rectitude of their conduct,
were sages according to that sublime criterion which
these visionary philosophers have endeavoured to
establish. I should be contented, however, to leave
them in the undisturbed possession of their arrogant
and unintelligible notions of virtue, provided they
wo aid allow that the great persons I have named
merited at least the character of good men ; but
even this, it seems, they are not willing to grant,
still contending, with their usual obstinacy, that
goodness is an attribute which can only be ascribed
to their perfect sage. I shall venture, neverthe-
less, to adjust my own measure of that quality by
the humbler standai'd of plain common sense. In
my opinion, therefore, whoever (like those distin-
guished models I just now mentioned) restrains his
passions within the bounds of reason, and uniformly

118 LiELIUS; OR,

acts, in all the various relations of life, upon one
steady, consistent principle of approved honour,
justice, and beneficence, that man is in reality, as
well as in common estimation, strictly and truly
good ; inasmuch as he regulates his conduct (so
far, I mean, as is compatible witli human frailty)
by a constant obedience to those best and surest
guides of moral rectitude, the sacred laws of
Nature.

In tracing these laws it seems evident, I think,
that man, by the frame of his moral constitution, is
disposed to consider himself as standing in some
degree of social relation to the whole species in
general ; and that this principle acts with more or
less vigour, according to the distance at which he
is placed with respect to any particular community
or individual of his kind. Thus it may be observed
to operate with greater force between fellow-citizens
of the same commonwealth than in regard to
foreigners, and between the several members of
the same family than towards those among whom
there is no common tie of consanguinity. In the
case of relations, indeed, this principle somewhat
rises in its strength, and produces a sorb of instinc-
tive amity ; but an amity, however, of no great
firmness or solidity. The inferiority of this species

A.N ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 119

of natural counection, when compared with that
which is tJie consequence of voluntary choice,
appears from this single consideration : that the
former has not the least dependence upon the senti-
ments of the heart, but continues the same it was
in its origin, notwithstanding every degree of
cordiality between the parties should be utterly
extinguished ; whereas the kind affections enter
so essentially into the latter, that where love does
not exist friendship can have no being. But what
still farther evinces the strength and efficacy of
friendship above all the numberless other social
tendencies of the human heart is that, instead of
wasting its force upon a multiplicity of divided
objects, its whole energy is exerted for the benefit
of only two or three persons at the utmost.

Friendship may be shortly defined, " a perfect
conformity of opinions upon all religious and civil
subjects, united with the highest degree of mutual
esteem and affection ; " and yet from these simple
circumstances results the most desirable blessing
(virtue alcne excepted) that the gods have be-
stowed on mankind. I am sensible that in this
opinion I shall not be uni-versally supported —
liealth and riches, honours and power, have each
of them their distinct admirers, and are respectively

120 L^LIUS ; OR,

inirsued as the supreme felicity of human life ;
whilst some there are (and the number is by no
means inconsiderable) who contend that it is to be
found only in the sensual gratifications. But the
latter place their principal happiness on the same
low enjoyments which constitute the chief good of
brutes, and the former on those very precarious
possessions that depend much less on our own
merit than on the caprice of fortune. They, in-
deed, who maintain that the ultimate good of man
consists in the knowledge and practice of virtue,
fix it, undoubtedly, upon its truest and most glori-
ous foundation ; but let it be remembered, at the
same time, that virtue is at once both the parent
and the support of friendship.

I have already declared that by virtue I do not
mean, with the philosophers before alluded to, that
ideal strain of perfection which is nowhere to bo
found but in the pompous language of enthusiastic
declamation ; I mean only that attainable degree
of moral merit which is understood by the term in
common discourse, and may be exemplified in actual
practice. Without entering, therefore, into a par-
ticular inquiry concerning those imaginary beings
which never have been realised in human nature, I
think myself warranted in considering those persons

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 121

as truly good men who have always been so deemed
in the genei-al opinion of mankind — the Pauli, for
instance, and the Catos, the Galli, the Scipios, and
the Phili ; for with such characters the world has
reason to be well contented.

When Friendship, therefore, is contracted between
men who possess a degree of virtue not inferior to
that which adorned those approved personages I
have just named, it is productive of unspeakable
advantages. " Life would be utterly lifeless," as
old Ennius expresses it, without a friend on
whose kindness and fidelity one might confidently
repose. Can there be a more real complacency,
indeed, than to lay open to another the most secret
thoushts of one's heart with the same confidence
and security as if they were still concealed in his
own 1 Would not the fruits of prosperity lose
much of their relish were there none who equally
rejoiced witli the possessor in the satisfaction he
received from them? And how difficult must it
prove to bear up under the pressure of misfortunes
unsupported by a generous associate who more than
equally divides their load] In short, the several
occasions to which friendship extends its kindly
offices are unbounded, while the advantage of every
other object of huuian desires is confined within

122 Li^ILIITS ; OR,

certain specific and determinate limits, beyond
which it is of no avail. Thus wealth is pursued
for tlie particular uses to which it is solely applic-
able ; power, in order to receive worship ; honours,
for the sake of fame; sensual indulgences, on account
of the gratifications that attend them ; and health,
as the means of living exempt from pain and posses-
sing the unobstructed exercise of all our corporeal
faculties. Whereas Friendship (I repeat again) is
adapted by its nature to an infinite number of
different ends, accommodates itself to all circum-
stances and situations of human life, and can at no
season prove either unsuitable or inconvenient — in
a word, not even fire and water (to use a proverbial
illustration) are capable of being converted to a
greater variety of beneficial purposes.

I desire it may be understood, however, that 1
am now speaking, not of that inferior species of
amity which occurs in the common intercourse of
the world (although this, too, is not without its
pleasures and advantages), but of that genuine and
perfect friendship, examples of which are so ex-
tremely rare as to be rendered memorable by their
singularity. It is this sort alone that can truly be
said to heighten the joys of prosjterity, and mitigate
the sorrows of adversity, by a generous participa-

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 123

tion of both ; indeed, one of the chief among the
many important offices of this connection is exerted
in the day of affliction, by dispelling the gloom that
overcasts the mind, encouraging the hope of happier
times, and preventing the depressed spirits from
sinking into a state of weak and unmanly despon-
dence. Whoever is in possession of a true friend
sees the exact counterpart of his own soul. In
consequence of this moral resemblance between
them, they are so intimately one that no advantage
can attend either which does not equally communi-
cate itself to both ; they are strong in the strength,
rich in the opulence, and powerful in the power of
each other. They can scarcely, indeed, be con-
sidered in any respect as separate individuals, and
wherever the one appears the other is virtually
present. I will Venture even a bolder assertion,
and affirm that in despite of death they must both
continue to exist so long as either of them shall
remain alive ; for the deceased may, in a certain
sense, be said still to live whose memory is pre-
served with the highest veneration and the most
tender regret in the bosom of the survivor, a cir-
cumstance which renders the former happy in
death, and the latter honoured in life.

If that benevolent principle which thus inti-

124 L^LIUS; OR,

mately unites two persons in the bands of amity
were to be struck out of the human heart, it would
be impossible that either private families or public
communities should subsist — even the land itself
would lie waste, and desolation overspread the
earth. Should this assertion stand in need of a
proof, it will appear evident by considering the
ruinous consequences whixjh ensue from discord
and dissension ; for what family is so securely
established, or what government fixed upon so firm
a basis, that it would not be overturned and utterly
destroyed were a general spirit of enmity and male-
volence to break forth amongst its members 1 —
a sufficient argument, surely, of the inestimable
benefits which flow from the kind and friendly
afiections.

I have been informed that a certain learned
bard of Agrigentum published a philosophic poem
in Greek, in which he asserted that the several
bodies which compose the physical system of the
universe preserve the consistence of their respec-
tive forms, or are dis])ersed into their primitive
atoms, as a principle of amity, or of discord, be-
comes predominant in their composition. It is
certain, at least, that the powerful effects of these
opposite agents in the moral world is universally

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP, 125

{»erceived and acknowledged. Agreeable to tins
general sentiment, who is there, when he beholds
a man generously exposing himself to certain
danger, for the sake of rescuing his distressed
friend, that can forbear expressing the warmest
approbation 1 Accordingly, what repeated accla-
mations lately echoed through the theatre at tlie
new play of my host and friend Pacuvius, in that
scene where Pylades and Orestes are introduced
before the king ; who being ignoi*ant which of
them was Orestes, whom he had determined to
put to death, each insists, in order to save the life
of his associate, that he himself is the real person
in question. If the mere fictitious representation
of such a magnanimous and heroic contention was
thus universally applauded by the spectators, what
impression must it have made upon their minds
had they seen it actually displayed in real life !
The general effect produced upon this occasion,
clearly shows how deeply nature hath impressed
on the human heart a sense of moral beauty ; since
a whole audience thus unanimously conspired in
admiring an instance of sublime generosity in
another's conduct, which not one of them, perhaps,
was capable of exhibiting in his own.

Thus far I have ventured to lay before you mv

126 li^^LIUS ; OR,

«

general notions concerning friendship. If aught
remain to be added on the subject (and much there
certainly does), permit me to refer you to those
philosophers who are more capable of giving you
satisfaction.
TyS' Fannius. — That satisfaction, Lselius, we rather
hope to receive from you. For although I have
frequently applied to those philosophers to whom
vou would I'esign me, and have been no unwillingr
auditor of their discourses, yet I am persuaded
you will deliver your sentiments upon this subject
in a much more elegant and enlightening manner.

Sc^voLA. — You would have been still more con-
fii-med in that opinion, Fannius, had you been
present with us at the conference which we held
not long since in the gardens of Scipio, upon the
subject of government ; when Lselius proved him-
self so powerful an advocate in support of natural
justice, by confuting the subtle arguments of the
very acute and distinguishing Philus. '

Fanxius. — To triumph in the cause of justice
could be no difficult task, certainly, to Laelius, who
is, confessedly, one of the most just and upright
of men.

SCiEvoLA. — And can it be less easy for him
who has deservedly acquired the highest honour

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 127

by his eminent constancy, affection, and fidelity to
his friend, to explain, with equal success, the
principles and duties of friendship 1
/toLvELius. — This is pressing me beyond all power
of resistance ; and, indeed, it would be unreason
able, as well as difficult, not to yield to the desires
of two such worthy relations, when they request
my sentiments upon a point of so interesting and
important a nature.

Having frequently, then, turned my thoughts on
this subject, the principal question that has always
occurred to me is, whether Friendship takes its rise
from the wants and weaknesses of man, and is
cultivated solely in order to obtain, by a mutual
exchange of good offices, those advantages which
he could not otherwise acquire 1 Or whether
nature, notwithstanding this beneficial intercourse
is inseparable from the connection, previously dis-
poses the heart to engage in it upon a nobler and
more generous inducement 1 In order to deter-
mine this question, it must be observed that love
is a leading and essential principle in constituting
that particular species of benevolence which is
termed amity ; and although this sentiment may
he feigned, indeed, by the followers of those who
are courted merely with a view to interest, yet it

128 Li?D LITIS; OR,

cannot possibly be i)rocluced by a motive of
interest alone. There is a truth and simplicity
in genuine friendship, an unconstrained and spon-
taneous emotion, altogether incompatible with
every kind and degree of artifice and simulation.
I am persuaded, therefore, that it derives its origin
not from the indigence of human nature, but from
a distinct principle implanted in the breast of man ;
from a certain iaistinctive tendency, which draws
congenial minds into union, and not from a cool
calculation of the advantages with which it is
pregnant.

The wonderful force, indeed, of innate propen-
sities of the benevolent kind is observable even
among brutes, in that tender attachment which
prevails during a certain period between the dam
and her young. But their strongest effects are
more pai-ticularly conspicuous in the human species ;
as appears, in the first place, from that powerful
endearment which subsists between parents and
children, and which cannot be eradicated or coun-
teracted without the most detestable impiety ;
and in the next, from those sentiments of secret
approbation which arise on the very first interview
with a man whose manners and temper seem to
harmonise with our own, and in whom we think

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 129

we discover symptoms of an lionest and virtuous
mind. In reality, nothing is so beautiful as virtue ;
and nothing makes its way more directly to the
heart : we feel a certain degree of affection even
towards those meritorious persons whom we have
never seen, and whose characters are known to us
only from history. Where is the man that does
not, even at this distance of time, find his heart
glow with benevolence towards the memory of
Fabricius or Curius, though he certainly never
beheld their persons 1 On the contrary, who is
there that feels not emotions of hatred and de-
testation when he reflects on the conduct of Tar-
quin, of Cassius, or of Melius ? Eonie has twice
contended for empire upon Italian ground, when
she sent forth her armies to oppose the respective
invasions of Pyrrhus and of Hannibal ; and yet,
with what different dispositions do we review the
campaigns of those hostile chiefs ! The generous
spirit of the former very much softens our resent-
ment towards him ; while the cruelty of the latter
must render his character the abhorrence of every
Roman.

If the charms of virtue, then, are so captivating,
as to inspire us with some degree of affection

towards those approved persons whom we never

E — 72

130 LiELIUS ; OR,

saw ; or, wliicli is still more extraordinary, if they
force us to admire them even in an enemy ; what
wonder is it that in those with whom we live and
converse they should affect us in a still more
irresistible manner 1 It must be acknowledged,
however, that this first impression is considerably
strengthened and improved, by a nearer intercourse,
by subsequent good offices, and by a general indica-
tion of zeal for our service — causes which, when
thev operate with combined force, kindle in the
heart the wannest and most generous amity. To
suppose that all attachments of this sort spring
solely from a sense of human imbecility, and in
order to supply that insufficiency we feel in our-
selves, by the assistance we hope to receive from
others, is to degrade friendship to a most unworthy
and ignoble origin. Indeed, if this [supposition
were true, they who find in themselves the greatest
defects would be the most disposed and the best
qualified to engage in this kind of connection,
which is contrary to fact. For experience shows
that the more a man looks for his happiness within
himself, and the more firmly he stands supported
by the consciousness of his own intrinsic merit, the
more desirous he is to cultivate an intercourse of
amity, and the Ijetter friend he certainly proves.

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 131

In what respect, let me ask, had Scipio any occasion
for my services 1 We neither of us, most assuredly,
stood in need of the other's aid ; but the singular
virtues I admired in his character, together Avith
the favourable opinion which in some measure,
perhaps, he had conceived of mine, were the primary
and prevailing motives of that affectionate attach-
ment which was afterwards so considerably in-
creased by the habitudes of intimate and unreserved
converse. For although many and great advantages
accrued to both from the alliance that was thus
formed between us, yet sure I am that the hope
of receiving those reciprocal benefits by no means
entered into the original cause of our union. In
fact, as generosity disdains to make a traffic of her
favours ; and a liberal mind confers obligations,
not from the mean hope of a return, but fclely from
that satisfaction which nature has annexed to the
exertion of benevolent actions, so I think it is
evident that we are induced to form friendships, not
from a mercenary contemplation of their utility,
but from that pure disinterested complacency which
results from the mere exercise of the affection itself.
That sect of philosophers who impute all human
actions to the same motive which determines those
of brutes, and refer both to one common principle

132 LiELITJS ; OR,

of self-gratification, will be very far, 1 am sensiblej
from agreeing wifcli me in the origin I have ascribed
to friendship. And no wonder, for nothing great
and elevated can win the esteem and approbation of
a set of men whose whole thoughts and pursuits are
professedly directed to so base and ignoble an end.
I shall take no further notice, therefore, of their
unworthy tenets, well convinced as I am that
there is an implanted sense in man, by which
nature allures his heart to the charms of virtue, in
whomsoever her lovely form appears. And hence
it is, that they who find in themselves a predilec-
tion for some particular object of moral approba-
tion are induced to desire a nearer and more
intimate communion with that person, in order to
enjoy those i)ure and mental advantages which flow
from an habitual and familiar intercourse with the
good, — I will add, too, in order to feel the refined
satisfaction of inspiring equal and reciprocal senti-
ments of affection, together with the generous
pleasure of conferring acts of kindness without the
least view of a return. A friendship placed upon
this, its proper and natural basis, is not only pro-
ductive of the most solid utility, but stands at the
same time upon a firmer and more dui-able founda-
tion than if it were raised upon a sense of human

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 133

wants and weakness. For if interest were the true
and only medium to cement this connection, it
could hold no longer than while interest, which is
always fluctuating and variable, should continue to
be advanced by the same hand ; whereas genuine
friendship, being produced by the simple efficiency
of nature's steady and immutable laws, resembles
the source fi'om whence it springs, and is for ever
permanent and unchangeable.

This may suffice concerning the rise of friend-
ship, unless you should have anything to object to
the principles I have endeavoured to establish.

Fannius. — Much otherwise. I will take the
privilege, therefore, of seniority to answer for
Scsevola as well as for myself, by requesting you
in both our names to proceed.
'^3 SCiEVOLA. — Fannius has very justly expressed
my sentiments, and I join with him in wishing to
hear what you have further to observe on the
question we have proposed.

L.ELIUS. — I will lay before you, then, my excel-
lent young man, the resvilt of frequent convei-sa-
tions which Scipio and I have formerly held
together upon the subject. He used to say that
nothing is so difficult as to preserve a lasting and
unbroken friendship to the end of life. For it

134 L^LIUS: OB.

may frequently happen hot only that the interest
of the parties shall considerably interfere, or their
opinions concerning political measures widely differ,
but age, infirmities, or misfortunes are apt to pro-
duce very extraordinary changes in the tempers
and dispositions of men. He illusti-ated this
general instability of common friendships by
tracing the revolutions they are liable to undergo
from the earliest period in which this kind of con-
nection can commence. Accordingly, he observed
that those strong attachments which are sometimes
formed in childhood were generally renounced with
the puerile robe. But should a particular aflfection
contracted in this tender age happen to continue to
riper years, it is nothing unusual to see it after-
wards interrupted, either by rivalship in a matri-
monial pursuit, or some otlier object of youthful
competition, in which both cannot possibly succeed.
If these common dangers, however, should be
happily escaped, yet others no less fatal may here-
after rise up to its ruin, especially if they should
become opposite candidates for the same dignities
of the state. For as with the generality of man-
kind, an immoderate desire of wealth, so among
those of a more liberal and exalted spirit, an
inordinate thirst of glory is usually the strongest

AN ESSAY ON FBIENDSHTP. 135

bane of amity ; and each of them have proved the
occasion of converting the warmest friends into tlie
most implacable enemies.

He added, that great and just dissensions had
arisen also in numberless instances on account of
improper requests — where a man has solicited his
friend to assist him, for example, in his lawless
gallantries, or to support him in some other act of
equal dishonour and injustice. A denial upon such
occasions, though certainly laudable, is generally
deemed by the party refused to be a violation of
the rights of amity ; and he will probably resent it
the more, as applications of this "nature necessarily
imply that the person who breaks through all
restraints in urging them is equally disposed to
make the same unwai'rantable concessions on his
own part. Disagreements of this kind have not
only caused irreparable breaches between the closest
connections, but have even kindled unextinguish-
able animosities. In short, the common friendships
of the world are liable to be broken to pieces by
such a variety of accidents, that Scipio thought it
, required a more than common portion, not only of
good sense, but of good fortune, to steer entirely
clear of those numei'ous and fatal rocks.

Our fii\st inquiry therefore, if you please, shall

136 LSLIUS ; OR,

be, " How far the claims of friendsliip may reason-
ably extend '? " For instance, ought the bosom
friends of Coriolanus (if any intimacies of that kind
he had) to have joined him in turning his arms
against his country ; or those of Viscellinns, or
Sjiurius Mselius, to have assisted them in their
designs of usurping the sovereign power ?

In those public commotions which were raised
by Tiberius Gracchus, it appeared that neither
Quintus Tubero, nor any other of those persons with
whom lie lived upon terms of the greatest intimacy,
engaged in his faction, one only excepted, who was
related to your family, Scnevola, by the ties of
hospitality : I mean Blosius, of Cumae. This man
(as I was ap})ointed an assessor \vith the two
consuls Lajnas and Rupilius) applied to me to
obtain his pardon, alleging, in his justification, that
he entertained so high an esteem and affection for
Gracchus, as to hold himself obliged to concur with
him in any measure he might propose. What ! if
he had even desired you to set fire to the Capitol 1
" Such a request, I am confident," replied Blosius,
" he never would have made " But admitting that
he had, how would you have determined 1 " In that
case," returned Blosius, " I should most certainly
have complied." Infamous as this confession

AN ESSAT ON FRIENDSHIP. 137

was, he acted agreeably to it ; or rather, indeed,
his conduct exceeded even the impiety of his
professions, for, not contented with encouraging
the seditious schemes of Tiberius Gracchus, he
actually took the lead in them, and was an in-
stis:ator as well as an associate in all the madness
of his measures. In consequence of these extrava-
gant proceedings, and alarmed to find that extra-
ordinary judges were appointed for his trial, he
made his escape into Asia, where, entering into the
service of our enemies, he met with the fate he so
justly merited for the injuries he had done to the
commonwealth.

I lay it down, then, as a rule without exception,
" that no degree of friendship can either justify or
excuse the commission of a criminal action." For
true amity being founded on an opinion of virtue
in the object of our affection, it is scarcely possible
that those sentiments should remain, after an
avowed and open violation of the principles which
originally produced them.

To maintain that the duties of this relation i-e-
qiiire a compliance with every request a friend
shall offer, and give a right to expect the same un-
limited concessions in return, would be a doctrine,

I confess, from which no ill consequences could
E*— 72

138 L^LIUS ; OK,

ensue, if the parties concerned were absolutely
perfect, and incapable of the least deviation from
the dictates of virtue and good sense. But in
settling the principles by which our conduct in
this respect ought to be regulated, we are not to
form our estimate by fictitious representations, but
to consider wliat history and experience teaches us
that mankind truly are, and to select for our
imitation such real characters as seem to have
approached the nearest to perfection.

Tiadition informs us that Papas ^railius and
Caius Luscinus, who were twice colleagues in the
consular and censorial offices, were united also in
the strictest intimacy ; and that Manius Curius
and Titus Coruncanius lived with them, and with
eacli other, upon terms of the strictest and most
inviolable friendship. It may well, therefore, be
presumed (since there is not even the slightest
reason to suspect the contrary) that none of these
illustrious worthies ever made a proposal to his
friend inconsistent with the laws of honour, or
that fidelity he had pledged to his country. To
urge that "if any overtures of that nature had
ever been made, they would certainly have been
rejected, and consequently must have been con-
cealed from public notice," is an objection by no

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 139

means sufficient to weaken the presumption, when
the sanctity of manners which distinguished these
venerable persons shall be duly considered ; for to
be capable of making svich pi-oposals would be no
less a proof of depravity thaii actually consenting
to them. Accordingly, we find that both Carbo
and Caius Cato, the friends of Tiberius Gracchus,
did not refuse to take a part in his turbulent
measm-es, as his brother Caius, although he was
not indeed a very considerable actor in the scene at
first, is now most zealously engaged in the same
unworthy cause.

Let it be established, therefore, as one of the
most sacred and indispensable laws of this con-
nection, "never either to make, or to grant, a
request which honour and virtue will not justify."
To allege, in any instance of deviation from moral
rectitude, that one was actuated by a warmth of
zeal for his friend, is in eveiy species of criminal
conduct a plea altogether scandalous and inad-
missible, but particularly in transactions that strike
at the peace and welfare of the state. I would the
more earnestly inculcate this important maxim, as,
from the present complexion of the times, it seems
peculiarly necessary to guard against introducing
principles which may hereafter be productive

140 L^LIUS; OR,

of fatal disturbances in the republic ; and, in-
deed, we have already somewhat deviated from
that political line by which our wiser ancestors
were wont to regulate their public conduct.

Thiis Tiberius Gracchus, who aimed at sovereign
power — or rather, indeed, who actually possessed it
during the space of a few months — opened a scene
so totally new to the Roman people that not even
tradition had delivered down to them any circum-
stance in former times whicli resembled it. Some
of the friends and relations of this man, who had
concurred with him in his lifetime, continued to
support the same factious measures after his death ;
and I cannot reflect on the cruel part they acted
towards Scipio Nasica without melting into tears.
I will confess, at the same time, that, in considera-
tion of the punishment which Tiberius Gracchus
has lately suflTeved, I have protected his friend
Carbo as far as it was in my power. As to the
consequences we have reason to expect from the
tribunate of Caius Gracchus, I am unwilling to
indulge conjecture ; but this I do not scruple to
say, that when once a distemper of this kind has
broken out in a commonwealth, the infection is apt
to spread, and it generally gathers strength the
wider it extends. In conformity to this observation,

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 141

the change which was made by the Gabinian
law in the manner ot" voting was, two years after-
wards, you know, carried still farther by the law
which Cassius proposed and obtained. And I
cannot but prophesy that a rupture between the
people and the senate will be the result of both, as
the most important affairs of the commonwealth
will hereafter be conducted by the ca[)rice of the
multitude. It is much easier, indeed, to discover
the source from which these disorders will arise,
than to point out a remedy for the mischief they
will occajsion.

I have thrown out these reflections, as well
knowing that no public innovations of this per-
nicious kind are ever attempted, without the as-
sistance of some select and confidential associates.
It is, necessary, therefore, to admonish those who
mean well to the constitution of their country, that
if they should inadvertently have formed an in-
timacy with men of a contrary principle, they are
not to imagine themselves so bound by the laws of
amity as to lie under an indisjjensable obligation to
support them in attempts injurious to the com-
munity. Whosoever disturbs the peace of the
commonwealth is a just object of puVjlic indigna-
tion ; nor is that man less deserving of punishment

142 ■ L^LIUS; OR,

who acts as a second in such an impious cause than
the principal. No person ever possessed a greater
shai'e of power, or was more eminently dis-
tinguished among the Grecian states, than Themis-
toclcs. This illustrious general, who was com-
mander-in-chief of the Grecian forces in the Persian
War, and who by his services upon that occasion
delivered his country from the tyranny with which
it was threatened, having been driven into exile by
the jealousy his great talents had raised, did not
acquiesce under the ingratitude of his fellow-
citizens with the submission he ought ; on the
contrary, he acted the same traitorous part under
this unmerited persecution as Coriolanus did
amongst us about twenty years before. But neither
the one nor the other found a coadjutor among
their respective friends, in consequence of which
just dereliction, they each of them perished by
their own desperate hands.

It appears, then, from the principles I have laid
down, that these kinds of wicked combinations
under the pretended obligations of friendship, are
so far from being sanctified by that relation, that
on the contrary they ought to be publicly discour-
aged by the severest punishments ; lest it should
be thought an allowed maxim, that a friend is to

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 143

be supported in every outrage he may commit,
even though he should take up arms against his
country. I am the more earnest to expose the
error of this dangerous persuasion, as there are
certain symptoms in the present times which give
me reason to fear that at some future period the
impious principle I am combating may actually be
extended to the case I last mentioned ; and I am
no less desirous that the peace of the republic
should be preserved after my death than zealous
to maintain it during my life.

The first and great axiom therefore in the laws
of [amity should invariably be — " never to require
from a friend what he cannot grant without a
breacb of his honour ; and always to be ready to
assist him upon every occasion consistent with that
principle." So long as we shall act under the
secure guard of this sacred barrier, it will not be
sufficient merely to yield a ready compliance with
all his desires ; we ought to anticipate and prevent
them. Another rule likewise of indispensable
obligation upon all who would approve themselves
true friends, is, " to be ever ready to offer their
advice, with an unreserved and honest frankness of
heart." The counsels of a faithful and friendly
monitor carry with them an authority which ought

14-4 TiiELIUS; OR,

to have great influence, and they should be urged
not only with freedom, but even with severity, if
the occasion should appear to require it.
^b I am informed that certain Greek writers (philo-
sophers, it seems, in the opinion of their country-
men) have advanced some very extraordinary
positions relating to the subject of our present
inquiry ; as, indeed, what subject is there which
these subtle geniuses have not tortured with their
sophistry ? The authors to whom I allude dissuade
their disciples from entering into any strong attach-
ments, as unavoidably creating supernumerary
disquietudes to those who engage in them, and as
every man has more than sufficient to call forth his
solicitude in the course of his own affairs, it is a
weakness, they contend, anxiously to involve him-
Belf in the concerns of others. They recommend it
also in all connections of this kind to hold the
bands of union extremely loose, so as always to
have it in one's power to straiten or relax them as
circumstances and situations shall render most
expedient. They add, as a capital article of their
doctrine, that " to live exemjit from cares is an
essential ingredient to constitute human happiness,
but an ingredient, however, which he who volun-
tarily distresses himself with cares in which he

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 145

has no necessary and personal interest, must never
hope to possess."
YGI have been told, likewise, that there is another
set of pretended philosophers of the same country,
whose tenets concerning this subject are of a still
more illiberal and ungenerous cast, and I have
already, in the course of this conversation, sligiitly
animadverted upon their principles. The proposi-
tion they attempt to establish is that " friendship
is an affair of self-interest entirely, and that the
proper motive for engaging in it is, not in order to
gi-atify the kind and benevolent affections, but for
the benefit of that assistance and support which is
to be derived from the connection." Accordingly
they assert that those persons are most disposed to
have recoui'se to auxiliary alliances of this kind
who are least qualified by nature or fortune to
depend upon their own strength and powers ; the
weaker sex, for instance, being generally more
inclined to engage in friendships than the male part
of our species : and those who are depressed oy
indigence, or labouring under misfortunes, than the
wealthy and the prosperous.

Excellent and obliging sages these, undoubtedly.
To strike out the friendly affections from the moral
vvorld would be like extinguishing the sun in tho

1.46 L^LIUS: OR.

natural, each of them being the source of the best
and most grateful satisfactions that the gods have
conferred on the sons of men. But I should be
glad to know what the real value of this boasted
exemption from care, which they promise their
disciples, justly amounts to 1 an exemption flatter-
ing to self-love, I confess, V)ut which, upon many
occurrences in human life, should be rejected with
the utmost disdain. For nothing, surely, can be
more inconsistent with a well-poised and manly spirit,
than to decline engaging in any laudable action, or
to be discouraged from persevering in it, by an
apprehension of the trouble and solicitude with
which it may probably be attended. Virtue herself,
indeed, ought to be totally renounced, if it be right
to avoid every possible means that may be produc-
tive of uneasiness; for who that is actuated by
her principles can observe the conduct of an
opposite character, without being affected with
some degree of secret dissatisfaction 1 Are not the
just, the brave, and the good necessarily exposed
to the disagreeable emotions of dislike and aversion
when they respectively meet with instances of
fraud, of cowardice, or of villainy ? It is an
essential property of every well-constituted mind
to be affected with pain, or pleasure, according to

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 147

the nature of thosp moral appearances that present
themselves to observation.
^S If sensibility, therefore, be not incompatible with
true wisdom (and it surely is not, unless wesiippose
that philosophy deadens every finer feeling of our
nature) what just reason can be assigned why the
sympathetic sufferings, which may result from
fi'iendship, should be a sufficient inducement for
banishino; that <;enerous affection from the human
breast? Extinguish all emotions of the heart and
what difference will remain, I do not say between
man and brute, but between man and a mere
inanimate clod 1 Away then with those austere
philosophers who represent virtue as hardening the
soul against all the softer impressions of humanity.
The fact, certainly, is miich otherwise ; a truly
good man is upon many occasions extremely sus-
ceptible of tender sentiments, and his heart expands
with joy or shrinks with sorrow, as good or ill
fortune accompanies his friend. Upon the whole,
then, it may fairly be concluded, that as in the case
of virtue, so in that of friendship, those painful
sensations which may sometimes be produced by
the one, as well as by the other, ai-e equally
insufficient for excluding either of them from taking
possession of our bosoms.

Its LiELIUS; OR,

' "^ There is a cliavm in virtue, as I have already

had occasion to remark, that "by a secret and irre-
sistible bias draws the general affection of those
persons towards each other in whom it appears to
reside, and this instantaneous goodwill is mutually
attended with a desire of entering into a nearer
and more intimate correspondence ; sentiments
which, at length, by a natural and necessary con-
sequence, give rise to jiarticular friendships.
Strange, indeed, would it be that exalted honours,
magnificent mansions, or sumptuous apparel, not
to mention other splendid objects of general
adnuration, should have power to captivate the
greater part of our species, and that the beauty of
a virtuous mind, capaVjle of meeting our affection
with an equal return, should not have sufficient
allm-ements to inspire the most ardent passion. I
said " capable of meeting our affection with an
equal return ; " for nothing, surely, can be more
delightful than to live in a constant interchange
and vicissitude of reciprocal good offices. If we
add to this, as with truth we may, that a similitude
of manners is the most powerful of all attractions,
it must be granted that the virtuous are strongly im-
pelled towards each other by that moral tendency and
natural relationship which subsists between them.

AN KSSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 149

No proposition therefore can be more e%dclent, I
think, than that the virtuous must necessarily, and
by an implanted sense in the human heart, receive
impressions of goodwill towards each other, and
these are the natural source from whence genuine
friendship can only flow. Not that a good man's
benevolence is by any means confined to a single
object ; he extends it to every individual. For true
virtue, incapable of partial and contracted excep-
tions to the exercise of her benign spirit, enlarges
the soul with sentiments of universal philanthropy.
How, indeed, could it be consistent with her cha-
racter to take whole nations under her protection,
if even the lowest ranks of mankind, as well as the
highest, were not the proper objects of beneficence 1

But to return to the more immediate object of
our present consideration. They who insist that
" utility is the first and prevailing motive which
induces mankind to enter into particular friend-
ships," appear to me to divest the association of its
most amiable and engaging principle. For to a
mind rightly composed it is not so much the
benefits received as the affectionate zeal from
which they flow, that gives them their best and
most valuable recommendation. It is so far, indeed,
from being verified by fnct, that a sen.se of our

150 LJKLIUS; OR,

wiiuts is the original cause of form in 2: these ami-
(5at)le alliances ; that, on the conti-aiy, it is observ-
able that none have been more distinguished in
their friendshij)S than those whose power and
opulence, but above all, whose superior virtue (a
much firmer support) have raised them above every
necessity of ]ia\ing recourse to the assistance of
others. Perhaps, however, it may admit of a
question, whether it were desirable that one's
friend should be so absolutely sufficient for himself,
as to have no wants of any kind to which his own
powers were not abundantly adequate. I am sure,
at least, I should have been deprived of a most
exquisite satisfaction if no opportunity had ever
offered to approve the affectionate zeal of my heart
towards Scipio, and he had never had occasion,
either in his civil or military transactions, to make
use of my counsel or my aid. '

The true distinction, then, in this question is,
that " although friendship is certainly productive
of utility, yet utility is not the primary motive of
friendship." Those selfish sensualists, therefore,
who lulled in the lap of luxury presume to main-
tain the reverse, have surely no claim to attention,
as they are neither qualified by reflection nor
experience to be competent judges of the sul)ject.

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 151

IP

Good gods ! is there a man upon the face of the
earth who would deliberately accept of all the
wealth and all the affluence this world can bestow
if offered to him upon the severe terms of his being
unconnected with a single mortal whom he could
love or by whom he should be beloved 1 This
would be to lead the wretched life of a detested
tyrant, who, amidst perpetual suspicions and
alarms, passes his miserable days a stranger to
every tender sentiment, and utterly precluded from
the heartfelt satisfactions of friendship. For who
can love the man he fears 1 or how can affection
dwell with a consciousness of being feared 1 He
may be flattered, indeed, by his followers with the
specious semblance, of personal attachment, but
whenever he falls (and many instances there are of
such a reverse of fortune) it will appear how totally
destitute he stood of every genuine friend. Accord-
ingly it is reported that Tarquin used to say in his
exile, that " his misfortunes had taught him to
discern his real from his pretended friends, as it
was now no longer in his power to make either of
them any returns." I should much wonder, how-
ever, if, with a temper so insolent and ferocious, he
ever had a sincere friend.

But as the haughtiness of Tarquin's imperious

152 L^LIXJS ; OR.

deportment rendered it impossible for him to know
the satisfaction of enjoying a faithful attachment,
so it frequently happens that the being advanced
into exalted stations equally proves the occasion
of excluding the great and the powerful from pos-
sessing that inestimable felicity. Fortune, indeed,
is not only blind herself but is apt to affect her
favourites with the same infirmity. Weak minds,
elated with being distinguished by her smiles, are
generally disposed to assume an arrogant and
supercilious demeanour ; and there is not in the
whole compass of nature, a more insufferable
creature than a prosperous fool. Prosperity, in
truth, has been observed to produce wonderful
transformations even in persons who before had
always the good sense to deport themselves in a
modest and unassuming manner ; and their heads
have been so turned by the eminence to which they
were i-aised, as to look down with neglect and con-
tempt on their old friends, while their new con-
nections entirely engaged all their attention and
favour. But there cannot surely be a more
flagrant instance of weakness and folly than to
employ the great advantages of extensive influence
and opulent possessions in the purchase of brilliant
equipages, gaudy raiment, elegant vases, together

^i

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 153

with every other fashionable decoration which
wealth and power can procure ; and yet neglect
to use the means they afford of acquiring that
noblest and most valuable ornament of human
life, a worthy and faithful friend ! The absurdity
of this conduct is the more amazing, as after all
the base sacrifices that may have been made to
obtain these vain and ostentatious embellishments,
the holding of them must ever be precarious. For
whoever shall invade them with a stronger arm, to
him they will infallibly belong ; whereas a true
friend is a treasure which no power, how for-
midable soever, can be sufficient to wrest from
the happy possessor. But admitting that the
favours of fortune were in their nature permanent
and iiTevocable, yet how joyless and insipid must
they prove if not heightened and endeared by the
society and participation of a bosom friend.
I ^ But not to pursue reflections of this sort any
farther, let me rather observe that it is necessary
to settle some fixed standard or measure, by which
to regulate and adjust the kind affections in the
commerce under consideration. To tliis intent,
three different criterions I find have been pro-
posed. The first is, " that in all important occur-
rences we should act towards our friend precisely

154 LaSLIUS ; OR,

in the same manner as if the case were our own : "
the second, " that our good offices should be ex-
actly dealt out, both in degree and value, by the
measure and merit of those we receive from him ; "
and the last, " that our conduct in relation to all his
concerns should be governed by the same kind oE
sentiments with which he appears to be actuated
in respect to them himself."

Now there is not one of these several rules to
which I can entirely give my approbation. The
first is by no means I think just ; because there
are many things I would undertake on my friend's
account, which I should never prevail with myself
to act on my own. For instance, I would not
scruple on his behalf to solicit, nor even to sup-
plicate a man of a mean and woi'thless character,
nor to repel with peculiar acriuiony and indig-
nation, any aflfront or injury that might be offered
to him. And this conduct, which I could not hold
without blame in matters that merely concerned
myself, I very laudably might in those which relate
to my friend. Add to this that theie are many
advantages which a generous mind would willingly
forego, or .sniffer himself to be deprived of, that his
friend might enjoy the benefit of them.

With regai-d to the second criteinon, which

AN ESSAY ON FEIENDSHIP. l55

determines the measure of our affection and good
offices, by exactly proportioning them to the value
and quality we receive of each, it degrades the
connection into a mere mercantile account between
debtor and creditor. True friendship is animated
by much too liberal and enlarged a spirit to dis-
tribute her beneficence with a careful and penurious
circumspection, lest she should bestow more abun-
dantly than she receives : she scorns to poise the
balance so exactly equal that nothing shall be
placed in the one scale without its equivalent in
the other.

The third maxim is still less admissible than
either of the two former. There are some charac-
ters who are apt to entertain too low an opinion of
their personal merit, and whose spirits are fre-
quently much too languid and depressed to exert
themselves with proper vk )ur and activity for the
promotion of their own interest or honours. Under
circumstances of this kind shall the zeal of a friend
rise no higher than one's own, but cautiously be
restrained within the same humble level 1 On the
contrary, he ought to endeavour by every means in
his power to dispel the gloom that overcasts the
mind of his desponding associate, and animate his
hopes with livelier and more sanguine expectationa

156 LjELius; or,

And now, lia\ing pointed out the insufficiency
of the several criteria I have mentioned, it is neces-
sary I should produce some other more adequate
and satisfactory. But before I deliver my opinion
in respect to this article, suffer me previously to
observe that Scipio used frequently to say there
never was a caution advanced more injurious to the
principles of true amity than the famous precept
which advises, "so to regulate your affection to-
wards your friend as to remember that the time
may possibly come when you shall have reason to
hate him." He could never, he said, be persuaded
that Bias, a man so distinguished for wisdom as to
be ranked among the seven celebrated sages of
Greece, was really the author, as he is generally
supposed, of so unworthy a precaution. It was
rather the maxim, he imagined, of some sordid
wretch, or perhaps of some ambitious statesman,
who, a stranger to every nobler sentiment of the
human heart, had no other object in forming his
connections but as they might prove conducive to
the increase or establishment of his power. It is
impossible certainly to entertain a friendship for
any man of whom you cherish so unfavourable an
opinion as to suppose he may hereafter give you
cause to become his enemy. In reality, if this

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 157

axiom were justly founded, and it be right to sit
thus loose in our affections, we ought to wish that
our friend might give us frequent occasions to com-
plain of his conduct, to lament whenever he acted
in a laudable manner, and to envy every advan-
tage that might attend him, lest unhappily he
should lay too strong a hold on our heart. This
unworthy rule, therefore, whoever was the author
of it, is evidently calculated for the utter extirpa-
tion of true amity. The more rational advice would
have been, as Scipio remarked, to be always so
cautious in forming friendships as never to place
our esteem and affections where there was a proba-
bility of their being converted into the opposite
sentiments. But, at all events, if we should be so
unfortunate as to make an improper choice, it were
wiser, he thought, not to look forward to possible
contingencies than to be always acting upon the
defensive, and painfully guarding against future
dissensions.

I think, then, the only measures that can be
properly recommended respecting our general con-
duct in the article of friendship is, in the first place,
to be careful that we form the connection with men
of strict and irreproachable manners ; and^ in the
next, frankly to lay open to each other all oui

158 L^Lias ; OR.

thoughts, inclinatious, and purposes without the
least caution, reserve, or disguise. I will venture
even to add that in cases in which the life or good
fame of a friend is concerned it may be allowable
to deviate a little from the path of strict right in
order to comply with his desires ; provided, how-
ever, that by this compliance our own character be
not materially affected. And this is the largest
concession that should be made to friendship ; for
the good opinion of the public ought never to be
lightly esteemed, nor the general affection of our
fellow-citizens considered as a matter of little im-
portance in carrying on the great affairs of the
world. Popularity, indeed, if purchased at the
expense of base condescensions to the vices or the
follies of the people, is a disgrace to the possessor,
but when it is the just and natural result of a
laudable and patriotic conduct, it is an acquisition
which no wise man will ever contemn.

But to return to Scipio. Friendship was his
favourite topic, and I have frequently heard him
remark that there is no article in which mankind
usually act with so much negligence as in what
relates to this connection. Everyone, he observed,
informs himself with great exactness of what
numbers his flocks and his herds consist, but who

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 159

is it that endeavours to ascertain liis real friends
with the same requisite precision ! Thus, likewise,
in choosing the former much caution is commonly
used in order to discover those significant marks
which denote their proper qucilities. Whereas, in
selecting the latter, it is seldom that any great
attention is exerted to discern those moral signa-
tures which indica,te the qualifications necessary to
constitute a friend.

One of the principal ingredients to form that
character is a " steadiness and constancy of temper."
This virtue, it must be confessed, is not very
generally to be found among mankind, nor is there
any other means to discover in whose bosom it
resides than experience. But as this experience
cannot fully be acquired till the connection is
already formed, aflfection is apt to take the lead of
judgment, and render a previous trial impossible.
It is the part of prudence, therefore, to restrain a
predilection from carrying us precipitately into the
arms of a new friend before we have, in some
degree at least, put his moral qualifications to the
test. A very inconsiderable article of money may
be sufficient to prove the levity of some men's pro-
fessions of friendship ; whilst a much larger sum in
contest will be necessary to shake the constancy of

160 L^LIUS; OR,

othei-s. But should there be a few, perhaps, who
are actuated by too generous a spirit to suffer any
pecuniary interest to stand in competition witli the
cLxiras of amity, yet where shall we find the man
who will not readily surrender his friendship to his
ambition when they happen to interfere ? Human
nature is, in general, much too weak to resist the
charms Avhich surround these glittering tempta-
tions ; and men are apt to flatter themselves that
although they should acquire wealth or power by
violating the duties of friendship, the world will be
too much dazzled by the splendour of the objects
to take notice of the unworthy sacrifice they make
to obtain them. And hence it is that real, un-
feigned amity is so seldom to be met with among
those who are engaged in the pursuit or possession
of the honours and the offices of the common-
wealth.

To mention another species of trial which few
likewise have the firmness to sustain. How severe
is it thought by the generality of mankind to take
a voluntary share in the calamities of others ! And
yet it is in the hour of adversity, as Ennius well
observes, that Friendship must principally prove
her truth and strength. In short, the deserting of
a friend in his distress, and the neglecting of him

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 161

in one's own prosperity, are the two tests which
discover the weakness and instability of most con-
nections of this nature. To preserve, therefore, in
those seasons of probation, an immovable and un-
shaken fidelity is a virtue so exceedingly rare that
I had almost called it ijiore than human.
-. The great support and security of that invariable
constancy and. steadiness which I require in a friend
is a strong and delicate sense of honour ; for there
can be no reliance upon any man who is totally un-
influenced by that principle, or in whom it operates
but faintly. It is essential also, in order to form
a permanent connection, that the object of our
choice should not only have the same general turn
of mind with our own, but possess an open, artless,
and ingenuous temper ; for where any one of those
qualities are wanting, vain would it be to expect a
lasting and faithful attachment. True friendship,
indeed, is absolutely inconsistent with every species
of artifice and duplicity ; and it is equally impossible
it should be maintained between persons whose
dispositions and general modes of thinking do not
perfectly accord. I must add, as another requisite
for that stability I am speaking of, that the party
should neither be capable of taking an ill-natured
satisfaction in reprehending the frailties of his
F— 72

162 L^LIUS; OR,

friend, nor easily induced to credit those imptita-
tions with which the malice of others may asperse
him.

These reflections sufficiently confirm that position
I set out with in this conversation, when I asserted
that " true friendship can only be found among the
virtuous ; " for, in the first place, sincerity is so
essential a quality in forming a good — or, if you
please, a wise — man (for they ai-e convertible
terms), that a person of that character would deem
it moi-e generous to be a declared enemy than to
conceal a rancorous heart under a smooth brow ;
and in the next the same generous simplicity of
heart would not only induce him to vindicate his
friend against the accusation of others, but render
him incapable of cherishing in his own breast that
little suspicious temper which is ever apt to take
offence and perpetually discovering some imaginary
violation of amity.

Add to this that his conversation and address
ou'^ht to be sweetened with a certain ease and
politeness of language and manners, that wonder-
fully contribute to heighten and improve the relish
of this intercourse. A solemn, severe demeanour
may be very proper, I confess, in certain characters,
to give them their proper impression ; but friendship

AN ESSAY ON FEIENDSHIP. 163

should wear a more pleasing aspect, and at all
times appear with a complacent, affable, and uncon-
strained countenance.

And here I cannot forbear taking notice of an
extraordinary question which some, it seems, have
considered as not altoijether without difficulty. It
has been asked, " Is the pleasure of acquiring a
new friend, supposing him endued with virtues
which render him deserving our choice, preferable
to the satisfaction of possessing an old one ? " On
the same account I presume, as we prefer a young
horse to one that is grown old in our service, for
never, surely, was there a doubt proposed more un-
worthy of a rational mind ! It is not with friend-
shipa as with acquisitions of most other kinds, which,
after frequent enjoyment, are generally attended
with satiety ; on the contrary, the longer we pre-
serve them, like those sorts of wine that will bear
age, the more relishing and valuable they become.
Accordingly the proverb justly says that " one
must eat many a peck of salt with a man before
he can have sufficient opportunities to approve
himself a thorough friend " — not that new con-
nections are to be declined, provided appearances
indicate that in due time they may ripen into the
happy fruits of a well contracted amity. Old

164 L7ELIUS ; OB.

friendships, however, certainly have a chiim to the
superior degree of our esteem, were it for no other
reason than from that powerful impression which
ancient habitudes of every kind naturally make
upon the human heart. To have recourse once
more to the ludicrous instance I just now sug-
gested— who is there that would not prefer a horse
whose paces he had been long accustomed to before
one that was new and untrained to his hand ?
Even things inanimate lay a strong hold on the
mind by the mere force of custom, as is observable
i)i that rooted affection we bear towards those
places, though never so wild and uncultivated, in
which a considerable part of our earlier days have
been passed.

It frequently happens that there is a great dis-
parity between intimate friends both in jjoint of
rank and talents. Now, under these circumstances,
" he who has the advantage should never appear
sensible of his superiority." Thus Scipio, who
stood distinguished in the little group, if I may so
o9.ll it, of our select associates, never discovered in
his behaviour the least consciousness of his pre-
eminence over Philus, Rupilius, Memmius, or any
other of his particular connections, who were of
subordinate abilities or station. And with regard

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 165

to liis brother, Q. Maximus, who, although a man
of great merit, and his senior, was by no means
comparable with Scipio, he always treated him
with as much deference and regard as if he had
advanced as far beyond him in every other article
as in point of years ; in short, it was his constant
endeavour to raise all his friends into an equal
degree of consequence with himself, and his example
well deserves to be imitated. Whatever excel-
lences, therefore, a man may possess in respect to
his virtues, his intellectual endowments, or the
accidental favours of fortune, he ought generously
to communicate the benefits of them with his
friends and family. Agreeably to these principles,
should he happen to be descended from an obscure
ancestry, and see any of his relations in distressed
circumstances, or that require the assistance of his
superior power or abilities, it is incumbent upon
him to employ his credit, his riches, and his talents,
to supply their respective deficiencies, and reflect
back upon them every honour and advantage they
are capable of receiving. Dramatic writers, when
the fabulous hero of their play, after having been
educated under some poor shepherd ignorant of his
true parent, is discovered to be of royal lineage, or
the oflspring, perhaps, of some celestial divinity,

'J.o

166 L^LIUS: OR.

always think it necessary to exhibit the noble
youth as still retaining a grateful affection for the
honest rustic to whom he had so long supposed
himself indebted for his birth ; but how much
more are these sentiments due to him who has
a legitimate claim to his filial tendex'ness and
respect ! — In a word, the most sensible satisfaction
that can result from advantageous distinctions of
every sort is in the pleasure a well-constituted
mind must feel by exerting them for the benefit
of every individual to whom he stands related,
either by the ties of kindred or amity.

But if he who, on account of any of those
superiorities which I have mentioned, appears the
most conspicuous figure in the circle of his friends,
ought by no means to discover in his behaviour
towards them the least apparent sense of the
eminence on whioh he stands, so neither should
they, on the other hand, betray sentiments of envy
or dissatisfaction in seeing him thus exalted above
them. It must be acknowledged, however, that in
situations of this kind the latter are too apt to be
unreasonable in their expectations ; to complain
that their friend is not sutiiciently attentive to
their interest, and sometimes even to break out
into open remonstrances, especially if they think

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 167

they are entitled to plead the merit of any con-
siderable services to strengthen their respective
claims. But to be capable of reproaching a man
with the obligations you have conferred upon him
is a disposition exceedingly contemptible and
odious ; it is his part, indeed, not to forget
the good otfices he has received ; but ill, cer-
tainly, would it become his friend to be the
monitor for that purpose.

It is not sufficient, therefore, merely to behave
with an easy condescension towards those friends
who are of less considerable note than one-
self ; it is incumbent upon him to bring them
forward, and, as much as possible, to raise their
consequence. The apprehension of not being
treated with sufficient regard sometimes creates
much uneasiness in this connection ; and those
tempers are most liable to be disquieted by this
suspicion that are inclined to entertain too low
an opinion of their own merit. It is the part
therefore of a generous and benevolent mind to
endeavour to relieve his friend from the mortifi-
cation of these humiliating sentiments, not only by
professions, but by essential services.

The proi)er measure by which these services
ought to be regulated must be taken partly fi-oui

168 LiELIUS; OR,

the extent of our own po .ver, and partly from what
the person who is the object of our particular
affection has abilities to sustain. For how un-
limited soever a man's authority and influence
might be, it would be impossible to raise indis-
criminately all his friends by turns into the same
honourable stations. Thus Scipio, although he
had sulhcient interest to procure the consular
dignity for Piiblius Rutilius, could not perform
the same good office for Lucius, the brother of that
consul. But even admitting that you had the
arbitrary disposal of every dignity of the state,
still it would be necessary well to examine whether
your friend's talents were equal to his ambition,
and sufficiently qualified him to discharge the
duties of the post in question, with credit to him-
self and advantage to the public.

It is proper to observe that in stating the duties
and obligations of friendship, those intimacies alone
can justly be taken into consideration which are
formed at a time of life when men's characters are
decided, and their judgments arrived at maturity.
As to the associates of our early years, the com-
panions and partners of our puerile pleasures and
amusements, they can by no means, simjDly on
that account, be deemed in the number of friends.

A.N ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 169

Indeed, if the first objects of our affection had the
best claim to be received into that rank, our
nurses and our pedagogues would certainly have a
right to the most considerable share of our regard.
Some degree of it is unquestionably due to them,
but of a kind, however, far different from that
which is the subject of our present inquiry. The
truth is, were our early attachments the just
foundation of amity, it would be impossible that
the union should ever be permanent. For our
inclinations and pursuits take a different turn as
we advance into riper years ; and where these are
no longer similar, the true cement of friendship
is dissolved. It is the total disparity between
the disposition and manners of the virtuous and
the vicious that alone renders their coalition
incompatible.

There is a certain intemperate degree of affection
towards one's friends which it is necessary to
restrain, as the indulging of it has frequently,
and in very important situations, proved extremely
prejudicial to their interest. To exemplify my
meaning by an instance from ancient story : Neop-
tolemus would never have had the glory of taking
Troy had his friend Lycomedes, in whose court he

had been educated, succeeded in his too warm and

F*— 72

170 L^LIUS; OR,

earnest solicitations not to hazard his person in
that famous expedition. There are numberless
occasions which may render an absence between
friends highly expedient ; and to endeavour, from
an impatience of sejjaration, to prevent it, betrays
a desrree of weakness inconsistent with that firm
and manly spirit, without which it is impossible to
act up to the character of a true friend. And this
is a farther confirmation of the maxim I before
insisted upon, that "in a commerce of friendship,
mutual requests or concessions should neither be
made nor granted, without due and mature de-
liberation."

But to turn our reflections from those nobler
alliances of this kind which are formed between
men of eminent and superior virtue, to that lower
species which occurs in the ordinary intercourse of
the world. In connections of this nature, it some-
times unfortunately happens, that circumstances arise
which render it expedient for a man of honour to
break with his friend. Some latent vice, perhaps,
or concealed ill-humour, unexpectedly discovers
itself in his behaviour either towards his friends
themselves, or towards others, which cannot be
overlooked without participating his disgrace. The
most advisable and prudent conduct in situations

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 171

of this kind is to suffer the intimacy to wear out
by silent and insensible degrees ; or, to use a strong
expression, which I remember to have fallen from
Cato upon a similar occasion, " the bands of f riend-
sliip should be gradually untied, rather than sud-
denly cut asunder;" always supposing, however,
that the offence is not of so atrocious a nature as
to render an absolute and immediate alienation
indispensably requisite for one's own honour.

As it is not unusual (for I am still speaking of
common friendships) that dissensions arise from
some extraordinary change of manners or sen-
timents, or from some contrariety of opinions with
respect to public affairs, the parties at variance
should be much upon their guard, lest their be-
haviour towards each other should give the world
occasion to remark that they have not only ceased
to be cordial friends, but are become inveterate
enemies, for nothing is more indecent than to
appear in open war with a man with whom one
has formerly lived upon terms of familiarity and
good fellowship.

Scipio estranged himself from Quintus Pom-
peius, you well know, solely upon my account ;
as the dissensions which arose in the republic
alienated him also from my colleague Metellua,

172 l^LIUS; OR,

But in both instances he preserved the dignity of
his character, and never suffered himself to be be-
trayed into the least improper warmth of re-
sentment.

Upon the whole, then, the first great caution in
this commerce should be studiously to avoid all
occasions of discord ; but if any should necessarily
arise, the next is to manage the quarrel with so
much temper and moderation that the flame of
friendship shall appear to have gently subsided,
rather than to have been violently extinguished.
But above all, whenever a dissension happens
between the parties, they should be particularly
on their guard against indulging a virulent ani-
mosity ; as a spirit of this exasperated kind, when
unrestrained, is apt to break forth into expressions
of the most malevolent contumely and re^jroach.
In a case of this nature, if the language should
not be too insulting to be borne, it will be prudent
in consideration of their former friendship to
receive it without a return, for by this forbear-
ance the reviler, and not the reviled, will appear
the person that most deserves to be condemned.

The sure, and indeed the only sure, means to
escape the several errors and inconveniences 1
have pointed out is, in the first place, "never

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 173

hastily to engage in friendships ; " and, in the
next, " not to enter into them with those who are
unworthy of the connection." Now, he alone is
worthy whose personal merit, independent of all
other considerations, renders him the just object of
affection and esteem. Characters of this sort, it
must be confessed, are extremely rare, as indeed
every other species of excellence generally is, no-
thinsr beins more uncommon than to meet with
what is perfect in its kind in any subject whatso-
ever. But the misfortune is that the generality of
the world have no conception of any other merit
than what may be turned to interest. They love
their friends upon the same principle, and in the
same proportion, as they love their flocks and their
herds ; giving just so much of their regard to each
as is equal to the profits they respectively produce.
Hence it is they are for ever strangers to the
sweet complacencies of that generous amity which
springs from those natural instincts originally im-
pressed upon the human soul, and is simply desir-
able for its own abstracted and. intrinsic value. To
convince them, however, of the possible existence
at least and powerful efficacy of an affection utterly
void of all mercenary motives, they need only be
referred to what passes in their own bosoms. Fee

174 L.^ELIUS; OR,

the love which every man bears to himself does not
certainly flow from any expected recompense or
reward, but solely from that pure and innate re-
gard which each individual feels for his own person.
Now, if the same kind of affection be not trans-
ferred into friendship, it will be in vain to hope for
a true fi'iend ; as a true friend is no other in effect
than a second self.

To these reflections we may add that if two dis-
tinct principles universally prevail throughout the
whole animal creation, in the first place, that love
of self which is common to every sensitive being,
and, in the next, a certain degree of social affection,
by which every individual of the same species is
led to herd with its kind, how much more strongly
has nature infused into the heart of man, together
with a principle of self-love, thi.s herding dispo-
sition I By the latter he is powerfully impelled
not only to unite with his species in general, but
to look out for some particular associate with whom
he may be so intimately blended in sentiments and
inclinations as to form, I had almost said, one soul
in two bodies.

The generality of mankind are so unreasonable,
not to say arrogant, as to require that their fi-iends
should be formed by a more perfect model than

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 175

themselves are able or willing to imitate. Whereas
the first endeavour should be to acquire yourself
those moral excellences which constitute a virtu-
ous character, and then to find an associate whose
good qualities reflect back the true image of your
own. Thus would the fair fabric of friendship be
erected upon that immovable basis which I have
so repeatedly recommended in the course of this
inquiry. For what should endanger its stability
when a mutual affection between the parties is
blended with principles that raise them above those
mean passions by which the greater part of the
world are usually governed 1 Being equally actu-
ated by a strong sense of justice and equity, they
will at all times equally be zealous to exert their
utmost powers in the service of each other, well
assured that nothing will ever be required, on
either side, inconsistent with the dictates of truth
and honour. In consequence of these principles
they will not only love, but revere each other. I
say revere, for where reverence does not dwell with
affection, amity is bereaved of lier noblest and most
graceful ornament.

It is an error, therefore, that leads to the most
pernicious consequences to imagine that the laws
of friendship supersede those of moral obligation,

176 LAXIUS ; OR,

and justify a participation with licentiousness and
debauchery. Nature has sown the seed of tliat
social afi'ection in the heart of man for purposes far
different ; not to produce confederates in vice, but
auxiliaries in virtue. Solitary and sequestered
virtue is indeed incapable of rising to the same
height as when she acts in conjunction with an
affectionate and animating companion of her
generous efforts. They who are thus leagued in
reciprocal support and encouragement of each
other's moral ambition may be considered as set-
ting out together in the best company and surest
road towards those desirable objects in which
nature has placed the supi'eme felicity of man.
Yes, my friends, I will repeat it again. An amity
ennobled by these exalted principles, and directed
to these laudable purposes, leads to honour and to
glory, and is productive, at the same time, of that
sweet satisfaction and complacency of mind which,
in conjunction with the two former, essentially
constitute real happiness. He, therefore, who
means to acfjuire these great and ultimate beat-
itudes of lauman life must receive them from the
hands of Virtue ; as neither friends) lip or aught
else deservedly valuable can possibly be obtained
without her influence and intervention. For they

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 177

who persuade themselves that they may possess a
true friend, at least, where moral merit has no
share in producing the connection, will find them-
selves miserably deceived whenever some severe
misfortune shall give them occasion to make the
decisive experiment.

It is a maxim, then, which cannot too frequently
nor too strongly be inculcated, that in forming the
attachment we are speaking of " we should never
suffer affection to take root in our hearts before
judgment has time to interpose ; " for in no circum-
stance of our lives can a hasty and inconsiderate
choice be attended with more fatal consequences.
But the folly is that we generally forbear to
deliberate till consideration can nothinsr avail :
and hence it is that after the association has been
habitually formed, and many good offices perhaps
have been mutually interchanged, some latent flaw
becomes visible, and the union which was precipi-
tately cemented is no less suddenly dissolved.
Now this inattention is the more blameworthy
and astonishing, as friendship is the only article
among the different objects of human pursuit the
value and importance of which is unanimously,
and without any exception, acknowledged. I say
tlie only article, for even Virtue herself is not

178 L-aiLIUS; OR,

universally held in esteem ; and there are many
who represent all her high pretensions as mere
atfectation and ostentatious parade. There are,
too, whose moderate desii^es are satisfied with
humble meals and lowly roofs, and who look
upon riches with sovereign contempt. How many
are there who think that those honours which
intlame the ambition of others are of all human
vanities the most frivolous ! In like manner
throughout all the rest of those several objects
which divide the passions of mankind, what some
admire others most heartily despise. Whereas,
with respect to friendship, there are not two
different opinions ; the active and the ambitious,
the retired and the contemplative, even the sen-
sualist himself (if he would indulge his appetites
with any degree of refinement) unanimously ac-
knowledge that without friendship life can have no
true enjoyment. She insinuates herself, indeed, by
I know not what irresistible charm into the hearts
of every rank and class of men, and mixes in all
the various modes and arrangements of human life.
Were there a man in the world of so morose and
acrimonious a disposition as to shun (agreeably to
what we are told of a certain Timon of Athens) all
communication with his species, even such an odious

AN ESSAY ON FEIENDSHIP. 179

misanthropist could not endure to be excluded from
one associate, at least, before whom he might dis-
charge the whole rancour and virulence of his heart.
The truth is, if we could suppose ourselves trans-
ported by some divinity into a solitude replete with
all the delicacies which the heart of man could
desire, but secluded at the same time from every
possible intercourse with our kind, there is not a
person in the world of so unsocial and savage a
temper as to be capable under these forlorn cir-
cumstances of relishing any enjoyment. Accord-
ingly, nothing is more true than what Archytas of
Tarentum, if I mistake not, is reported to have
said, "That were a man to be carried up into
heaven, and the beauties of imiversal nature dis-
played to his view, he would receive but little
pleasure from the wonderful scene if there were
none to whom he might relate the glories he had
beheld." Human nature, indeed, is so constituted
as to be incapable of lonely satisfactions ; man, like
those plants which are formed to embrace others,
is led by an instinctive impulse to recline on his
species, and he finds his happiest and most secure
support in the arms of a faithful friend. But
although in this instance, as in every other, Nature
points outher tendenciesby a variety of unambiguous

180 L^ELIUS; OR.

notices, and proclaims hoi- meaning in the most
emphatical language, yet, I know not liow it is,
we seem strangely blind to her clearest signals,
and deaf to her loudest v^oice !

The offices of friendship are so numerous, and of
such different kinds, that many little disgusts may
arise in the exercise of them, which a man of true
good sense will either avoid, extenuate, or he con-
tented to bear, as the nature and circumstances of
the case may render most expedient. But there is
one particular duty which may frequently occur,
and which he will at all hazards of offence dis-
charge, as it is never to be superseded consistently
with the truth and fidelity he owes to the connec-
tion ; I mean the duty of admonishing, and even
reproving, his friend, an office which, whenever it
is affectionately exercised, should be kindly re-
ceived. It must be confessed, however, that the
remark of my dramatic friend is too frequently
verified, who observes in his Andria that " obse-
quiousness conciliates friends, but truth creates
enemies." When truth proves the bane of friend-
shi]) we may have reason, indeed, to be sorry for
the unnatural consequence ; but we should have
cause to be more sorry if we suffered a friend by a
culpable indulgence to expose his character to just

An essay on friendship. 181

reproach. Upon these delicate occasions, however,
we should be particularly careful to deliver our
advice or reproof without the least appearance of
acrimony or insult. Let our obsequiousness (to
repeat the significant expression of Terence) extend
as far as gentleness of manners and the rules of
good breeding require; but far let it be from
seducing us to flatter either vice or misconduct, a
meanness unworthy, not only of every man who
claims to himself the title of friend, but of every
liberal and ingenuous mind. Shall we live with a
friend upon the same cautious terms we must
submit to live with a tyrant ? Desperate indeed
must that man's moral disorders be who shuts his
ears to the voice of truth when delivered by a
sincere and affectionate monitor ! It was a saying
of Cato (and he had many that well deserve to be
remembered) that "some men were more obliged
to their inveterate enemies than to their com
plaisant friends, as they frequently heard the
truth from the one, but never from the other ;"
in short, the great absurdity is tliat men are
apt, in the instances under consideration, to
direct both their dislike and their approbation
to the wrong object. They hate the admonition,
and love the vice ; whereas they ought, on the

182 li^LltTS; OR,

contrary, to hate the vice, and love the admoni-
tion.

As nothing, therefore, is more suitable to the
genius and spirit of true friendship than to give
and receive advice — to give it, I mean, with
freedom, but without rudeness, and to receive it
not only without reluctance, but with patience — so
nothing is more injurious to the connexion than
flattery, compliment, or adulation. I multiply
these equivalent terms, in order to mark with
stronger emphasis the detestable and dangerous
character of those pretended friends, who, strangers
to the dictates of truth, constantly hold the lan-
f'-uac^e which they are sure will be most acceptable.
But if counterfeit appearances of every species are
base and dishonest attempts to impose upon the
judgment of the unwary, they are more peculiarly
so in a commei'ce of amity, and absolutely re-
pugnant to the vital principle of that sacred rela-
tion ; for, without sincerity, friendship is a mere
name, that has neither meaning or efficacy. It is
the essential property of this alliance to form so
intimate a coalition between the parties that they
seem to be actuated, as it were, by one common
spirit ; but it is impossible that this unity of mind
should be produced when there is one of them in

AN ESSAT ON FRIENDSHIP. 183

which it does not subsist even in his own person,
who, Avitli a duplicity of soul which sets him at
perpetual variance from himself, assumes opposite
sentiments and opinions, as is ^nost convenient to
his present purpose. Nothing in nature, indeed, is
so pliant and versatile as the genius of a flatterer,
who always acts and pretends to think in con-
formity, not only to the will and inclination, but
even to the looks and countenance of another.
Like Gnatho in the play, he can prevail with him-
self to say either yes or no, as best suits the occa-
sion ; and he lays it down as his general maxim,
never to dissent from the company.

Terence exposes this baseness of soul in the per-
son of a contemptible parasite ; but how much more
contemptible does i<; appear when exhibited in the
conduct of one who dares usurp the naace of friend !
The mischief is that there are many Gnathos,
of a much superior rank and consequence, to be
met with in the commerce of the world ; and it is
from this class of flatterers that the gi-eatest dan£;er
is to be apprehended, as ihe poison they administer
receives additional strength and efficacy from the
hand that conveys it. Nevertheless, a man of
good sense and discernment, if he will exert
the requisite attention, will" always be able to

ISi LJCLIUS ; OR,

distinguish the complaisant from the sincere friend,
with the same certainty that he may in any other
subject perceive the difference between the counter-
feit and the genuine. It is observable in the
general assemblies of the people, composed as they
are of the most ignorant part of the community,
that even the populace know how to discriminate
the soothing insidious orator, whose only aim is
to acquire popularity, from the firm, inflexible, and
undesigning patriot. A remai'kable instance of
this kind lately appeared, when Caius Papirius
proposed a law to enable the Tribunes, at the
expiration of their office, to be re-elected for the
ensuing year, upon which he employed every in-
sinuating art of address to seduce and captivate
the ears of the multitude. Not to mention the
part I took myself upon that occasion, it was
opposed by Scipio with such a commanding flow
of eloquence, and invincible strength of reason,
that this popular law was rejected by the very
populace themselves. But you were present at
the debate, and his speech is in everybody's hands.
I cannot forbear giving you another instance like-
wise, although it is one particularly relating to
myself. You may remember that in the consulate
of Lucius Mancinus and Quintus Maximus, the

AN ESSAY ON FEIENDSHIP. 185

brother of Scipio, a very popular law was moved
by Caius Licinius, who proposed that the privilege
of electing to the sacerdotal offices should be trans-
ferred from the respective colleges to the general
assemblies of the people ; and let me remark, by
the way, it was upon this occasion that Licinius,
in complaisance to the people, first introduced the
practice of addressing them with his back turned
upon the Senate-house. Nevertheless, the pious
reverence which is due to every circumstance that
concerns the worship of the immortal gods, to-
gether with the arguments by which I exposed the
impropriety of his motion, prevailed over all the
specious colourings of his plausible oratory. This
affair was agitated during my Prsetorship, and I
was not chosen Consul till five years afterwards, so
that it is evident I owed my success more to the
force of truth than to the influence of station.

Now, if in popular assemblies, a scene, of all
others, in which fiction and fallacious representa-
tions have the greatest scope, and are usually
employed with the most success. Truth, when fairly
stated and properly enforced, could thus prevail,
with how much more reason may she expect to be
favourably heard in an intercourse of friendship,
the very essence whereof depends upon sincerity J

186 L.T^.LIUS ; OR,

In a commerce of this nature, indeed, if you are
not permitted to see into the most hidden recesses
of your friend's bosom, and do not with equal
unreserve lay open to him the fidl exposui-e of
your own, there can be no just ground for con-
fidence on either side, nor even sufficient evidence
that any affection subsists between you. With
respect, however, to that particular deviation from
truth which is the object of our present considera-
tion, it must be acknowledged that, noxious as
flattery is, no man was ever infected by it who did
not love and encourage the offering. Accordingly,
there is no turn of mind so liable to be tainted by
this sort of poison as a disposition to entertain too
high conceit of one's own merit. I must confess,
at the same time, that conscious virtue cannot be
void of self-esteem, as well knowing her own worth,
and how amiable her form appears. But the pre-
tenders to virtue are much more numerous than
the really virtuous, and it is of the former only
that I am now speaking. Men of that character
are particularly delighted with adulation, as con-
firming their title, they imagine, to the merit they
so vainly claim.

It appears then that genuine friendship cannot
possibly exist where one of the parties is unwilling

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 187

to hear truth and the other is equally indisposed
to speak it. Fi'iends of this kind are by no means
uncommon in the world, and, indeed, there would
be neither propi'iety nor humour in the character
of a parasite as exhibited by our comic writers,
were a vain-glorious soldier, for example, never to
be met with in real life. When the braggart
captain in the play asks Gnatho, " Did Thais
return me many thanks, say you 1 " An artless
man would have thought it sufficient to answer
" many," but the cunning sycophant replies,
" immense, innumerable ; " for a skilful flatterer
perfectly well knows that a pleasing circumstance
can never be too much exaggerated in the opinion
of the person upon whom he means to practise.

But although flattery chiefly operates on those
whose vanity encourages and invites the exercise of
it, yet these are not the only sort of men upon
whom it may impose. There is a delicate and
refined species of adulation, against which even
better understandings may not improperly be
cautioned. Gross and open obsequiousness can
deceive none but fools, but there is a latent and
more ensnaring manner of insinuation, against
which a man of sense ought to be particularly on
his guard. A flatterer of this insidious and

188 LiELIUS ; OB,

concealed kind will frequently gain his point even
by opposition ; he will affect to maintain opinions
which he does not hold, and dispute in order to
give you the credit of a victory. But nothing is
more humiliating than to be thus egregiously
duped. It is necessary, therefore, to exert the
utmost attention against falling into these covert
snares, lest we should have reason to say, with one
of the characters in the Heiress, " Never was old
dotard on the stage so finely played upon as I have
been by you to-day.'' This, indeed, would be to
exhibit the mortifying personage of one of those
ridiculous old men in our comedies, who listen with
3asy faith to every specious tale contrived to
impose on their credulity. But I have insensibly
wandered from the principal object I had in view,
and instead of proceeding to consider Friendship as
it appears in perfect characters (perfect, I mean, as
far as is consistent with the frailty of human
nature), I am talking of it as it is seen in the vain
and frivolous connections of the world. I return
therefore to the original subject of our conversation,
and which it is now time to draw towards a con-
clusion.

It is virtue, yes, let me i-epeat it again, it is
virtue alone that can give birth, strength, and

AN ESSAY ON FRIENDSHIP. 189

permanency to friendsliip. For virtue is a uni-
form and steady principle ever acting consistently
with itself. They whose souls are warmed by its
generous flame not only improve their common
ardour by communication, but naturally kindle
into that pure affection of the heart towards each
other which is distinguished by the name of amity,
and is wholly unmixed wnth every kind and degree
of selfish considerations. But although genuine
friendship is solely the offspring of pure goodwill,
and no motive of advantage or utility has the least
share in its production, yet many very beneficial
consequences result from it, how little soever those
consequences are the objects primarily in view.
Of this disinterested nature was that affection
which, in the earlier season of my life, united me
with those venerable old men, Paulus, Cato, and
Gallus, as also with Nasica and Gracchus, the
father-in-law of my late honoured and lamented
friend. That the principle I have assigned is
really the leading motive of true friendship becomes
still more evident when the connection is formed
between men of equal years, as in that which sub-
sisted between Scipio, Furius, Rupilius, Mummius,
and myself. Not that old men may not also find
a generous satisfaction in living upon terms of

190 L^LIUS : OR.

disinterested intimacy with the young, as I have tin
happiness to experience in the friendship I enjoy,
not only with both of you and Q. Tubero, but even
with Publius Rutilius and Aulus Virginius, who
are much your juniors. One would wish, indeed,
to preserve those friends through all the successive
periods of our days with whom we first set out
together in this our journey through the world.
But since man holds all his possessions by a very
precariousand uncertain tenure we should endeavour,
as our old friends drop off, to repair their loss by
new acquisitions, lest one should be so unhappy as
to stand in his old age a solitary, unconnected
individual, bereaved of every person whom lie
loves and by whom he is beloved. For without a
proper and pai-ticular object upon which to exercise
the kind and benevolent affections, liie is destitute
of every enjoyment that can render it justly desir-
able.

As to the loss I have myself sustained by the
death of Scipio, who was so suddenly and so un-
expectedly snatched from me, he is still present in
my mind's eye, and present he will ever remain ;
for it was his virtues that endeared him to my
heart, and hi.s virtues can never die. But not by
me only, who had the happiness to enjoy a daily

o

PA Cicero, Marcus Tullius

6308 Old age; and, Frieridship

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